May 27, 2025 • 37 mins
What if shopping malls weren't just retail spaces, but carefully designed social hubs that reveal profound truths about American culture? Alexandra Lange's "Meet Me by the Fountain" takes us on a fascinating journey through the unexpected origins and evolution of one of America's most influential architectural forms.
Throughout our conversation, Lange uncovers surprising connections between malls and urbanism. Despite their reputation as anti-urban spaces, malls offer valuable lessons in creating environments where people actually want to spend time. Climate control, ample seating, accessible restrooms, and opportunities for both planned meetings and chance encounters—these simple amenities are often overlooked in our public urban spaces but prove crucial for creating functional social environments.
Show Notes:
- Author Recommended Reading:
- Radical Suburbs: Experimental Living on the Fringes of the American City by Amanda Hurley
- The Harvard Design School to Shopping edited by Rem Koolhaus
- When Women Ran 5th Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow
- Claire: The little girl who climbed to the top and changed the way women dress by Debra Scala Giokas
- To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Amazon Affiliates page at https://amzn.to/44G44gK or even better, get a copy through your local bookstore!
- To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Rouse (00:00):
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Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
Well, welcome back, bookworms,to another episode of Booked on
(01:10):
Planning.
In this episode we talk withauthor Alexandra Lange on Meet
Me by the Fountain an insidehistory of the mall.
Like many listeners, while Ihave many fond memories of the
mall from my youth, it's not aplace I particularly enjoy going
to today.
But this book had me thinkingdifferently about malls and I'm
kind of interested in visitingone to look at the mall in a new
light.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:34):
I also have so many wonderful memories of the
mall from my childhood, so itwas great to see the mall get
the recognition and attentionthat I actually think it
deserves.
As we discussed in the episode,I never really thought about
the mall as an area thatplanners should really be giving
their attention to, though.
Stephanie Rouse (01:45):
Agreed, and one of the interesting takeaways
that was unexpected was that themall can teach us about
urbanism.
It seems like such ananti-urban land use at face
value, but early concepts forthe mall by legends like Victor
Gruen highlight the potential ofmalls as places for social
interaction and gatherings thatare often missing in many
communities today.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:06):
Yes, I was also surprised by that, given how all
of our malls are currently setup, and, of course, we're
thinking about malls from the80s and 90s at this point.
However, there are quite a fewgood examples in the book about
how cities and developers arereusing all of the parking
spaces left over as the mallquote unquote declines, and
utilizing urbanist principles toredevelop the area.
So let's get into ourconversation with author
(02:28):
Alexandra Lang on Meet Me by theFountain an inside history of
the mall.
Stephanie Rouse (02:35):
Alexandra, thank you for joining us on
Booked on Planning to talk aboutyour book Meet Me by the
Fountain an inside history ofthe mall.
So reading this book, it reallytook me down memory lane and
I'm sure anyone that reads thisbook is going to have a similar
experience.
Going back to our own mallexperiences growing up, but the
malls of my millennialgeneration are not the same as
(02:55):
the original malls of the 1950sand 60s.
Can you talk about early malldesigners like Victor Gruen and
what they had intended forshopping malls at the time?
Alexandra Lange (03:10):
Sure, first of all, thanks for having me, and
one of the reasons that I reallywanted to write this book was
because of those millennial and,for me, gen X mall experiences.
I felt like there were so manypeople out there who had this
lived experience of the mallthat maybe they'd never
considered from a designplanning, you know, cultural
criticism perspective and I justfelt like wow, like this, this
needs to be a book.
(03:31):
And like so many people, evenoutside my normal kind of
architectural audience, aregoing to be able to relate to
this book.
So, just like I appreciate thatframing of your question.
But yeah, so Victor Gruen isgenerally considered to be the
father of the shopping mall andGruen has a really interesting
biography.
He was a Jewish emigre fromVienna who came to New York in
(03:54):
1938, fleeing the Nazis, and alot of his early work was very
fancy, kind of jewel boxmodernist boutiques in New York
City and he slowly built hiscareer in retail during like the
late 30s, early 40s and so bythe time that the suburbs were
really getting going in New Yorkin the post-war period, he had
(04:16):
this background of designingfirst, you know, individual
stores and then departmentstores, and he looked at the
American suburbs and thought,okay, we're building all these,
okay, we're building all thesenew highways, we're building all
these new single family houses,but where are people going to
get together?
Like, where's the Cafe Societyof Vienna?
Essentially, in the suburbs ofmajor American cities.
(04:38):
And so the germ of his ideaabout the mall was really trying
to bring back, you know, cafeculture, pedestrian culture,
like the town square, mainStreet, you know, like whatever
manifestation of that really oldurban city building pattern.
He realized that suburbs didn'thave it and they needed it
because it's a human need.
(04:58):
So he created the mall for thatreason to provide something in
the suburbs that they felt likethey were lacking.
Jennifer Hiatt (05:10):
I was unaware of the origin of the term mall, so
I'm kind of assuming some ofour listeners will too.
Can you give a brief history ofwhy we started using the term
mall and how we think about ittoday versus how we kind of used
to think about it?
Alexandra Lange (05:20):
Mall is actually a term from landscape
architecture.
So you know, when you'rethinking about the National Mall
in Washington and a shoppingmall, they actually have the
same origin, which tends to kindof blow people's minds.
But that origin story has to dowith an Italian lawn bowling
game called Palo Maglio, whichis basically kind of like bocce
(05:42):
and croquet, like a combo of,let's say, bocce and croquet,
and that game came over toLondon in the 18th century and
the words Palamaglia got turnedinto Paul Mall, which is an
actual square in London.
Mall from that came to mean thecourt that Palamaglia was
(06:04):
played on, which was a long,thin strip of grass generally
surrounded by buildings.
So that form became known as amall.
And if you think about the verysimplest shape of the shopping
mall, which is one departmentstore at one end, one department
store at the other end, shopsin between and then usually
benches and fountains andplanters down the middle, like
(06:27):
that is the same shape as themall and that's actually the
same shape as the National Mall.
You know, from a game to aLondon Square, to this
ubiquitous American post-warshopping pattern, like all of
these things are malls.
Stephanie Rouse (06:41):
Knowing how an architect's mind works and how
you start with this like reallybroad concepts, concepts and
then kind of sketch and iterateand then all of a sudden you
have this physical manifestationof whatever you started with.
I can like just picture VictorGruen looking at one of the Pall
Mall courts and then workinghis way into this new design for
a shopping mall.
Alexandra Lange (07:00):
Yeah, it's interesting.
So the first indoor shoppingmall designed by Gruen was
Southdale in Edina, minnesota,which is a suburb of Minneapolis
and that in fact did not havethat long skinny pattern.
It was sort of a pinwheel shapewith, again, two department
stores and two banks of smallerstores but around a square, like
.
I think he was thinking more ofa town square rather than a
(07:23):
mall when he designed that one,but that was kind of an
inefficient pattern and it was alittle more complicated to fill
and to build.
And so while Southdale, like,has that kind of pattern, pretty
soon thereafter Gruen and othermall developers moved to the
like the long skinny pattern, Icall it the I shape, and that
was kind of mall history.
(07:45):
But it's actually justinteresting that you bring up
kind of the way that architectscan, you know, boil down a
pattern into its like geometricbasics.
Because I think that's one ofthe things that people find
really hard to do in a mallbecause they're so distracted by
the sights and the sounds andthe smells and the you know
clothes in the stores.
(08:06):
And so people often say, oh, Iget lost in the mall and I'm
like, well, you'll never getlost in a mall if you kind of
understand the basic designprinciples.
But it's very hard to you knowkind of drill down to those
design principles wheneverything about all of the
stuff in the mall is attemptingto distract you.
Stephanie Rouse (08:30):
Exactly, and you talk about pedestrian malls
in the book, which were aconcept that ultimately would
fail in most cities that triedit.
You wrote that 11% ofpedestrian malls actually
succeeded in the 21st century.
What was the issue with thesemalls and why did so few of them
succeed?
Alexandra Lange (08:41):
Yeah, pedestrian malls are really
interesting.
I live in Brooklyn and FultonMall in downtown Brooklyn is one
of that 11% that persisted, youknow, post 1960s, 1970s, heyday
.
The thing that's required for apedestrian mall to be
successful is a built inpedestrian population.
So some of the most successfulpedestrian malls are in beach
(09:04):
communities, college communitiesand other tourist centers.
So Boulder, colorado,burlington, vermont, santa
Monica, like those, are thereally famous ones, along with,
I would say, fulton Mall inBrooklyn.
So all of those places havegood public transportation
access, have a population thateither doesn't have a car or
doesn't want to have a car, akastudents, and so they can take
(09:28):
advantage of the pedestrianscale and the pedestrian
facilities.
But if you just put apedestrian mall in a city where
most people drive, that sort oftakes them out of the natural
pattern of the way the rest ofthe city is built and it becomes
very difficult to attractpeople to come downtown to shop
at that mall, and that's why somany failed.
Jennifer Hiatt (09:50):
I have a lot of lovely childhood memories at
Pearl Street in Boulder.
It's really one of my favoriteplaces to be.
One of the major observationsthat you make in the book is
that both of the majorprofessions that think about
shaping cities we were alreadytalking about architects, but
then also planning has failed totake notice of the act of
shopping as something more thanjust a distraction, but actually
a shaper of cities.
(10:12):
So why do you think that bothof these professions have
overlooked the mall and shoppingso much?
Alexandra Lange (10:19):
Well, I have a one-word answer to that that you
guys can probably anticipate,which is sexism.
I mean, who does the shopping?
I think that there are twokinds of shopping that are part
of people's daily routine, butmajority of it is done by women.
Half of that is utilitarianshopping you know, food shopping
(10:40):
, drugstore shopping, like basicerrands and the other half is,
let's say, you know, foodshopping, drugstore shopping,
like basic errands, and theother half is, let's say,
pleasure shopping, and theformer is considered sort of
boring and beneath notice andthe latter is considered to be
often a waste of time and soneither of those are really
taken seriously as a majorshaper of people's roots.
(11:01):
But I mean, I think in morerecent years, when people have
started to look at, say, sexismin transportation planning, one
of the things that's oftenbrought up is that women's daily
routes are much morecomplicated than men's daily
routes, let's say,stereotypically, by and large,
and most transportation systemsare designed for the
point-to-point commute, likefrom the residential area to the
(11:25):
center city and back, withoutany stops.
But a typical women's route willinvolve dropping kids off at a
daycare, picking up something atthe supermarket.
It has many more points and oneof the things that 21st century
transportation systems have totake into account is those more
complex routes.
Take into account is those morecomplex routes.
(11:49):
So I think that the mall insome ways is analogous to that,
because the mall was a positivething for these women in the
post-war era that often didn'twork and were stuck in the
suburbs to make their dailyround of errands much more
pleasant, because they would runinto friends at the mall.
Some of them had nurserieswhere they could drop off their
kids so they could do thoseerrands more efficiently.
So the mall is really a boon towomen, especially in that you
(12:11):
know, kind of post-war you knowtwo parents, one working, living
in the suburbs pattern and theimportance of that for making
the suburbs a more humane place,a less dystopian place, is
often left out because thoseactivities weren't considered so
important.
Stephanie Rouse (12:28):
We just had an example of a current example of
the mall and serving as thatkind of central hub for women,
connecting with our last bookMeet Me at the Library.
There's a library and I cannotremember which town it's in, but
they put a library in the malland it served as this huge draw
where parents bring their kidsfor story time or little
activities and then all of themoms get together and catch up
(12:51):
and have this little socialactivity as well.
So it was interesting how thesetwo episodes overlapped,
without really intentionallyoverlapping.
Alexandra Lange (12:59):
I think it's the Anna Rundell Mall in
Annapolis that has one of thelargest public library branches
in a mall, but it's not alone.
There are other ones, butthat's one of the largest and
I've definitely communicatedwith the people there because
it's such a great example ofbuilding community in this, you
know, capitalist space.
Stephanie Rouse (13:17):
So malls were built to sell fashion and
newness, and they had to.
You know, the shops have toturn over and pull the latest
new fashion.
So then the malls that you knowhoused all these shops were
doing the same thing, which isvery unlike most architecture
that we build to last, would yousay this has contributed to so
many dead malls in recent years,or are malls not understanding
(13:37):
this design characteristic ofredesign or die that kind of
shopping as a field has?
Alexandra Lange (13:44):
I feel like there are kind of two ways to
answer that question.
I mean the first way is thatmall architecture is built to
change, in the sense that thestorefronts can be swapped in
and out very easily and thatdoesn't necessarily have to make
any changes on, like the kindof common areas of the mall.
(14:04):
However, those common areas canstart to look very dated.
I mean, we've all already livedthrough many eras of kind of
you know what does publicarchitecture look like, and one
of the reasons that you knowmany malls start to decline is
because another mall is built intheir town and it number one.
(14:25):
Like you know, kind of itsiphons people off with its
newness, but often theaesthetics of that mall are more
contemporary, are morefashionable.
So people that sort of didn'tnotice that the old mall was
getting run down or maybe likehas the color and materials
palette that's no longer invogue really like see that when
the new mall opens?
So mall architecture itself haslike sort of infinite capacity
(14:48):
for change.
But we do all perceive thingsas being more or less
fashionable and you know, makinga materials decision at one
time can severely date yourproperty.
One of the malls that I talkabout in the book at length is
North Park in Dallas, which wasbuilt by the Nasher family and
opened in 1964.
(15:08):
And that mall was designed by EGHamilton, who was an architect
who'd worked for Minoru Yamasaki, and he designed it in this
really beautiful minimalist waywith, you know, poured concrete
floors and white brick and somevery delicate branding details.
And the same family still ownsthat mall and they have
basically preserved it.
(15:29):
And it's so interesting to methat the aesthetics of that mall
have probably kind of gone upand down and you know, like sort
of through the washing machineof fashion, but they are
fashionable again.
So by preserving it and kind ofkeeping the very, very simple
lines of that mall, theyactually like managed to keep it
(15:51):
fashionable for almost 60 yearsnow.
And when they added on to it inthe early 2000s they kept the
same materials palette.
They could change a few thingsyou know we can make much larger
pieces of glass now and theytook advantage of that but they
kept that same like white brick,concrete floors, very clean,
and it still looks great.
So I think that sometimes mallowners are too quick to freak
(16:15):
out about their materialspalette being dated rather than
trying to sort of showcase itand set it off, because every
material dates eventually.
Jennifer Hiatt (16:25):
It's almost impossible, at least in my world
, which partly I'm a lawyer anda planner.
When I think of malls, Iimmediately think of some of our
infamous First Amendment casesand you feature some of them in
the book such as AmalgamatedFood Employees Union versus
Logan Valley Plaza, lloydCorporation versus Tanner and
New Jersey Coalition Against Warin the Middle East versus the
(16:47):
JBM Realty Corp.
So what should our listenersknow about their personal rights
and potential public space whenthey are visiting a mall?
Alexandra Lange (16:55):
So I'm not a lawyer and that was one of the
most fascinating things for meto research in this book,
because the legal casesinvolving the mall are super
interesting and a lot of theSupreme Court and state Supreme
Court decisions are really wellwritten and that was just kind
of a world of writing andresearch that I'd never gotten
into before.
And then also the, let's say,the rightward drift of
(17:21):
legislation vis-a-vis the mallsas public space, the mall as a
place of protest, was also veryinteresting and you can see a
lot of parallels in politicstoday.
Yeah, you mentioned LoganValley Plaza.
That's a Supreme Court casefrom 1968, which was the first
time that the mall essentiallyencountered the law.
(17:42):
And that was a case.
It was sort of a strip mallwhere the union employees of the
supermarket in the mall wantedthe freedom to protest their
working conditions and initiallythe owners of the mall said
that they could not protest onthe property because it was
private property.
And that case went all the wayto the Supreme Court and
(18:03):
Thurgood Marshall actually wrotethe opinion for the majority
saying yes, the employees didhave a right to protest at the
mall and his argument in thatcase was that in the late 20th
century, main streets were oftenno longer the central space of
a town and malls were replacingthem, and so if malls were going
(18:26):
to replace them, they had tostill operate as a de facto town
square.
I mean, that's just kind of anincredible thing to read in 1968
.
Now, unfortunately, like overthe years since then, slowly
that right and that sort ofbelief that the mall was
essentially a town square neededto operate as such has been
chipped away, and at this pointthe question of whether you can
(18:48):
protest at the mall is a stateby state question.
It was, you know, kicked backto like state constitutions and
state Supreme Courts, so in themajority of states you cannot
protest at the mall.
A very famous example of thiswas during the Black Lives
Matter protests.
A group came to the Mall ofAmerica in Minnesota at
(19:10):
Christmastime and protested, andthey were all arrested because
Minnesota is not one of thestates where there are free
speech rights in the mall.
Jennifer Hiatt (19:18):
I think it's really interesting.
So Logan Valley Plaza is kindof having a resurgent as the
idea of social media has builtup.
And where is the public squarenow?
Right here in Lincoln, youcould probably go protest on O
Street and people will justdrive by you.
There's not a real collectivearea except our Capitol where
(19:39):
people go, and so I just thinkit's really fascinating.
We kicked the mall questionback to the states, but the
federal government keepsgrappling with social media.
And where are we going to comedown?
And if social media is a townsquare, will the mall question
come back up, as malls are kindof seeing a resurgence of people
coming back to the mall?
(20:00):
I think it will be aninteresting area of law as it
starts developing.
Alexandra Lange (20:05):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
One of the things thatinterests me about social media
and many people is its abilityto you know kind of broadcast
news, both verbally and visually, and I think one of the reasons
you need a public space togather in now is often sometimes
(20:25):
so you can transmit thosepictures of people gathering in
the public space.
It's why a lot of times peopleare angry that sometimes the
mainstream media is not coveringprotests enough, because
they're seeing all of thesepictures of protests on social
media and you're like this lookslike news.
So the ability to kind of getaround the mainstream media with
social media is important.
(20:46):
But there's also kind of afeedback loop between the IRL
gatherings and the onlinegatherings.
That I think is beneficial formass protest but also shows you
why the government might benervous about people sharing
protest on social media in thesame way that they are nervous
about people protesting at themall.
Stephanie Rouse (21:07):
It's an excellent point.
So a quote from your book isthat the mall has a lot to teach
urbanism.
And me, like I'm sure, someother listeners and we talked
about how planners havediscounted the value of the mall
at the beginning of the episodeprobably are saying, really,
but what do you think that mallscan teach us about urbanism?
Alexandra Lange (21:26):
I think the primary lesson is really just
about what people like to do.
I mean, why do people like themall?
People like the mall becauseit's open in all the seasons, it
has benches, it has bathrooms,it has coffee.
In a lot of places it's a placewhere you can have kind of
loose ties, social gatherings,run-ins, easy way to meet up
(21:49):
with people in a kind oflow-lift way.
And so I think all of thosethings are social and humanist
patterns that urbanism should beaccounting for.
If you know, one of the thingsthat urbanism is supposed to do
is bring people together, maketheir lives easier, and the mall
kind of concentrates all a lotof that in one place.
And I think it's really steppedinto the breach in a lot of
(22:11):
places where you know publicurbanism is not doing a lot of
work.
So I would like to see like thepublic functions of urbanism
(22:35):
take up some of that work, andyou see it in some places that
are trying to, you know, getmore public bathrooms, get more
public benches.
You know there's been a realrenaissance in urban parks, I
think that have more servicesand kind of more things built in
.
It's not just a field, butstill like there's a lot of room
for improvement out there and Ithink the mall has a lot of
(22:57):
good lessons.
Stephanie Rouse (22:58):
Yeah, you have a whole section on mall walkers,
which is something I knew.
You always knew about it and myfather-in-law retired a couple
of years ago and he became amall walker and, especially in
the winter months when it's badweather out, want to make sure
that he's safe when he's outwalking early in the morning,
and that's just something thatit's so hard for communities to
make.
You know their entire networkaccessible and free of cracks,
(23:22):
heaving sidewalks and you haveto deal with so many things like
tree roots getting in the wayof stuff, whereas the mall just
doesn't have any of those issuesand it's so much easier to be
that kind of accessible, saferspace.
Alexandra Lange (23:38):
Yeah, and hopefully he's built up like a
community of friends andacquaintances that he's also
walking with, if he's goingthere that frequently.
Stephanie Rouse (23:43):
That's also important for older people.
Yeah, he knows there's twoladies.
I can't remember he knows allabout them because they
apparently all go at the sametime.
But that was anotherinteresting thing that you
mentioned in the book about howCOVID really impacted a lot of
those networks that had beencreated at malls, as these mall
walking groups, and when themalls shut down during COVID
they lost that network.
Alexandra Lange (24:04):
Yeah, I mean I think with what we know now
about COVID, it's clear that ifthey had been masked, those
networks could have continued toexist and in fact that was
probably, you know, kind of oneof the safer activities that
they could have been doing.
So it's really too bad.
But yes, I mean the mall ingeneral acts as a social hub.
(24:25):
But yes, particularly for olderpeople, those mall walking
communities are important, likeat multiple levels for, you know
, public health, and COVIDreally broke that.
And I mean I heard anecdotallyabout some people that ended up
walking in mall parking lotssort of like around the outside
of the mall during COVID, whichseems sort of tragic to me
(24:45):
because really there's nothingless appealing than a mall
parking lot in most cases.
But just that kind ofidentification with place and
activity and trying to make sure, even in a time of crisis, that
you clung to like a bit of thatI think is a really important
lesson with how identifiedpeople become with particular
spots in their cities.
Jennifer Hiatt (25:07):
As Stephanie mentioned in the introduction,
we are both millennials and as ageneration, we do tend to get
accused of killing everything,including the mall, and a lot of
people say that it is becauseof our online shopping.
I found it very interesting asI was reading your book and I
kept thinking did onlineshopping really create the death
of the mall?
What do you think?
Alexandra Lange (25:28):
Online shopping did not create the death of the
mall.
I would say the death of themall is really like a three-part
problem.
Online shopping is definitelypart of it, but if you look at
the statistics on the percentageof retail, every year that was
done online, pre-pandemic itnever rose above about 20% of
(25:51):
retail sales, rose above about20% of retail sales.
During the pandemic it zoomedup to about 35%, but it started
going down almost immediatelywhen things began opening back
up.
So even after people had becomemore accustomed to the quote
unquote convenience of onlineshopping during COVID, they
quickly realized that there weremany things that they wanted to
(26:12):
shop for in person and in factthey had missed shopping in
person.
So online shopping took a chunk, but it was not the whole
problem.
I would say the larger problemwas number one.
The 2007-2008 recession took outa huge number of department
stores, especially the middleincome department stores that
(26:34):
had been the anchors for manymalls, and it was very hard for
malls to recover from thoseinitial draws no longer being
draws and then to fill thosevery large retail spaces like
that are kind of like the faceof your mall.
And then the third part of thedeath of the mall is that the US
was really, really overmalledin many, many cities and I've
(26:57):
told this anecdote and peoplegenerally are like oh yes, I
remember that when this happened, you know, initially in the
1960s there would have been onemall.
Then the suburbs get a littlemore built out, then there's
another mall and your city canprobably support like two to
three malls.
But then in the 90s, just kindof like the peak era of mall
building, developers would comein and build a new giant mall on
(27:19):
the very outer edge of theouter ring of suburbs and that
mall would cannibalize theshoppers of all of the other
malls, like there had stoppedbeing like new retail territory
at that point.
So people were just stealingtheir competitors' shoppers.
And if you look at any chartsof the number of retail square
feet per person in the US, it's,I think, almost double the
(27:43):
closest other industrializednations.
So we just have so much moreretail than we need.
So in some ways the death ofthe mall retail than we need.
So in some ways the death ofthe mall, while exaggerated,
because it's not the death ofall malls is right-sizing the
amount of retail square footagethat we have per person in the
US.
Stephanie Rouse (28:02):
So outside of the US, in the final section of
your book you start talkingabout other countries and it
feels like Latin America andAsian cities are actually
getting them all right withtheir designs.
What are the differences andwhat lessons could we learn in
reviving some of our defunctmalls?
Alexandra Lange (28:27):
you know, talk to people over the past like two
plus years since my book waspublished, because almost every
audience I have has people fromLatin America and Asia and they
start talking about their mallsand I'm like, yes, you're like
your mall is doing great, likethat.
That's why I have a finalchapter, because I'm hoping that
more people will write morebooks about the specific cases
of their malls.
In terms of, you know,countries and continents, I'm an
(28:47):
Americanist so I felt like whatI could best talk about was the
American mall.
I would say the big differencein both of those cases is that
the mall is much less suburbanand more urban.
Malls are typically vertical,at least to a certain extent,
you know, like up to eightstories, but more typically like
three stories, so it's a morecompact footprint, and they're
(29:09):
generally attached to publictransportation systems, so
they're not isolated in themiddle of a parking lot and they
are accessible on foot or onpublic transportation from
residential neighborhoods.
So in many cases they'reserving the same kind of quasi
public space function for theseneighborhoods, but everything
around them is more urbanized,so kind of as with the
(29:32):
pedestrian malls in the US.
If you have more of a built inpopulation that's literally like
right there, like right on topof your mall.
It gives it a better chance ofsuccess.
Jennifer Hiatt (29:43):
I find it very interesting that Gruen used the
term blight proof neighborhoodwhen he was talking about one of
his master plans for a bigshopping area, because, as we
were just talking about, that'snot necessarily true.
So now cities all over thecountry, including Lincoln,
actually are blighting parts oftheir existing malls.
What do you think that citiesshould be thinking about as we
seek to redevelop these areas?
Alexandra Lange (30:05):
as we seek to redevelop these areas.
Yeah, I mean, one of the thingsthat's so interesting about
Gruen is that he came from thisEuropean model.
He built the mall, but in hisinitial conception of the mall
he thought that the developersof the mall would then develop
housing, office space and otherservices around the mall.
In his vision, they always hada big parking lot, but there
(30:26):
were other uses that you couldhave walked between around the
mall.
In his vision, they always hada big parking lot, but there
were other uses that you couldhave walked between around the
mall.
What happened is basically thedevelopment community in the US
is very separated by type, andso retail developers don't want
to do housing development, andso even in those initial days,
the retail developers just soldoff their extra land and let the
(30:47):
housing developers do what theywanted to do, which was
cul-de-sac.
So it's really interesting thata lot of the most successful
mall redevelopments now arebasically making what was a
single-use property back intomixed-use, essentially
re-urbanizing it Like.
One of the best examples of this, I think, is Garden State Plaza
, which is a very large old mallin Northern New Jersey and it
(31:11):
actually is doing quite well,but the owners of the mall
decided that they wanted to makeit into more of a mixed use
community, and so now they'rebuilding housing and some like
co-working spaces in the extraparking lot of their mall and
they're even going to make anoutdoor green.
So right back to this townsquare idea that will complement
(31:34):
the sort of indoor town squareat the mall, and so, yeah,
they're really thinking of it asan opportunity in what is, you
know, a more densely built uparea now than it was when the
mall initially started.
An opportunity to, you know,make money, obviously, but also
create more of a pedestrian kindof almost town-like atmosphere
(31:55):
around their existing mall.
And I see things like thathappening with more distressed
properties also.
But I just like that examplebecause it's like there was
actually nothing wrong with themall, but I think the owners are
very smart to try to kind ofget ahead of the next wave.
Stephanie Rouse (32:10):
What's also encouraging is here at the
University of Nebraska, for acouple years now, one of the
professors his architecturestudio is focused on our
original mall and redevelopingit, because it's just covered in
a sea of parking, and thestudents each year come up with
all of these ways to incorporatenew housing and community
spaces and art studios and allthose, all these different ideas
(32:32):
for taking the existing malland then building it out into a
more of a community like whatyou're talking about.
Alexandra Lange (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that
I was really hoping that thisbook would help with was give
professors, studio leaders, atext to give students to get
them excited about working onthe mall.
Because I feel like for a longtime, when the dominant
narrative about the mall wasdead malls and people were
almost kind of like glorying inthe ruin porn of the photos, the
(33:01):
idea of redeveloping a malldidn't seem very sexy and I felt
like, oh, you know, I know,architecture professors kind of
have to sell their studio.
So it's like would the youthpick a studio that was
redeveloping the mall?
So I thought, okay, if there'sthis text that talks about malls
in this more creative way,maybe that can help to encourage
more creative thinking, justgenerally speaking.
(33:21):
So it's great to hear thatthat's happening.
I also get asked about housinga lot, because obviously that is
the major crisis in our countrytoday.
A lot of people likeromanticize the idea of actually
inserting housing into the bodyof the mall, but I think really
building housing in the mallparking lot is the smartest and
(33:42):
cheapest way to do that.
Jennifer Hiatt (33:45):
Maybe the fact that the younger generation is
really excited about the early2000s with your book.
Now maybe they can make themalls really cool again and make
designing malls cool again.
Alexandra Lange (33:55):
I mean, it's always good to leverage
nostalgia into something that'skind of more than nostalgia
builds on nostalgia.
So I think that would be prettyfabulous.
I follow one Instagram accountof this woman who basically, you
know, dresses up like it'sstill the 80s and takes pictures
of herself in malls.
But she's too young to havedone that the first time around
(34:17):
and it's really fun and I feellike that, like that's the
proper spirit, like try to getinto an understanding of what
happened there and why they wereimportant to an older
generation.
Stephanie Rouse (34:28):
So, as this is booked on planning, in addition
to your book, which we recommendall of our listeners check out,
what other books would yourecommend our listeners get a
copy of?
Alexandra Lange (34:38):
I was going to recommend Amanda Hurley's book
Radical Suburb.
It's a great small book thatlooks at suburbs that aren't
(35:01):
stereotypical, not yourcul-de-sac suburbs.
To give the moms, who were alsothe architects, peace of mind
by having a lot of collectiveand communal space where the
kids could all run around in apack that could be seen from the
big pieces of glass in all oftheir houses but meant that the
kids weren't siloed in their ownbackyards, it's just a great
kind of alternative.
Look at what we're talkingabout when we talk about the
(35:22):
suburbs.
In terms of shopping history, Ireally love the Harvard Design
School Guide to Shopping, whichis this compendium that was
edited by Rem Koolhaas, amongothers, and came out of a big
studio that he did on shoppingat Harvard now almost 20 years
ago.
But it has a great deep dive onthe escalator and things like
(35:44):
that, really taking apart allthe parts of the mall.
And then also there've been abunch of recent really good
histories of the departmentstore which is obviously this
building block for the mall, andone of them is called when
Women Ran Fifth Avenue by JulieSatow.
And then a friend of mine,Elizabeth Evitz Dickinson, has
just written a biography ofClaire McArdle, who was an early
(36:08):
feminist designer whose careerwas really supported by
department stores just beforeand then after the war.
So all of those are really funthings to read.
Stephanie Rouse (36:19):
All great recommendations, all new to the
show.
Sometimes we get some repeats.
Alexandra Lange (36:24):
Yeah, I mean, I didn't scroll through all of
the shows so I wasn't sure, butI'm glad to offer new ideas,
yeah we have quite the librarybuilding now with this question
that we added a couple years ago.
Yeah, it's a great idea becauseI think every book has these
offshoots and subsets of thetopic, and so you can take it in
whatever direction interestsyou the most.
Stephanie Rouse (36:46):
Well, alexandra .
Thank you for joining us on theshow to talk about your book.
Meet Me by the Fountain AnInside History of the Mall.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Hiatt (36:55):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Alexandra Lange on MeetMe by the Fountain An Inside
History of the Mall.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at
Bloomsbury Publishing or clickthe link in the show notes below
to take you directly to ouraffiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts and please rate, reviewand share the show.
Thank you for listening andwe'll talk to you next time on
(37:15):
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Join us as we get Booked onPlanning.
Well, welcome back, bookworms,to another episode of Booked on
(01:10):
Planning.
In this episode we talk withauthor Alexandra Lange on Meet
Me by the Fountain an insidehistory of the mall.
Like many listeners, while Ihave many fond memories of the
mall from my youth, it's not aplace I particularly enjoy going
to today.
But this book had me thinkingdifferently about malls and I'm
kind of interested in visitingone to look at the mall in a new
light.
Jennifer Hiatt (01:34):
I also have so many wonderful memories of the
mall from my childhood, so itwas great to see the mall get
the recognition and attentionthat I actually think it
deserves.
As we discussed in the episode,I never really thought about
the mall as an area thatplanners should really be giving
their attention to, though.
Stephanie Rouse (01:45):
Agreed, and one of the interesting takeaways
that was unexpected was that themall can teach us about
urbanism.
It seems like such ananti-urban land use at face
value, but early concepts forthe mall by legends like Victor
Gruen highlight the potential ofmalls as places for social
interaction and gatherings thatare often missing in many
communities today.
Jennifer Hiatt (02:06):
Yes, I was also surprised by that, given how all
of our malls are currently setup, and, of course, we're
thinking about malls from the80s and 90s at this point.
However, there are quite a fewgood examples in the book about
how cities and developers arereusing all of the parking
spaces left over as the mallquote unquote declines, and
utilizing urbanist principles toredevelop the area.
So let's get into ourconversation with author
(02:28):
Alexandra Lang on Meet Me by theFountain an inside history of
the mall.
Stephanie Rouse (02:35):
Alexandra, thank you for joining us on
Booked on Planning to talk aboutyour book Meet Me by the
Fountain an inside history ofthe mall.
So reading this book, it reallytook me down memory lane and
I'm sure anyone that reads thisbook is going to have a similar
experience.
Going back to our own mallexperiences growing up, but the
malls of my millennialgeneration are not the same as
(02:55):
the original malls of the 1950sand 60s.
Can you talk about early malldesigners like Victor Gruen and
what they had intended forshopping malls at the time?
Alexandra Lange (03:10):
Sure, first of all, thanks for having me, and
one of the reasons that I reallywanted to write this book was
because of those millennial and,for me, gen X mall experiences.
I felt like there were so manypeople out there who had this
lived experience of the mallthat maybe they'd never
considered from a designplanning, you know, cultural
criticism perspective and I justfelt like wow, like this, this
needs to be a book.
(03:31):
And like so many people, evenoutside my normal kind of
architectural audience, aregoing to be able to relate to
this book.
So, just like I appreciate thatframing of your question.
But yeah, so Victor Gruen isgenerally considered to be the
father of the shopping mall andGruen has a really interesting
biography.
He was a Jewish emigre fromVienna who came to New York in
(03:54):
1938, fleeing the Nazis, and alot of his early work was very
fancy, kind of jewel boxmodernist boutiques in New York
City and he slowly built hiscareer in retail during like the
late 30s, early 40s and so bythe time that the suburbs were
really getting going in New Yorkin the post-war period, he had
(04:16):
this background of designingfirst, you know, individual
stores and then departmentstores, and he looked at the
American suburbs and thought,okay, we're building all these,
okay, we're building all thesenew highways, we're building all
these new single family houses,but where are people going to
get together?
Like, where's the Cafe Societyof Vienna?
Essentially, in the suburbs ofmajor American cities.
(04:38):
And so the germ of his ideaabout the mall was really trying
to bring back, you know, cafeculture, pedestrian culture,
like the town square, mainStreet, you know, like whatever
manifestation of that really oldurban city building pattern.
He realized that suburbs didn'thave it and they needed it
because it's a human need.
(04:58):
So he created the mall for thatreason to provide something in
the suburbs that they felt likethey were lacking.
Jennifer Hiatt (05:10):
I was unaware of the origin of the term mall, so
I'm kind of assuming some ofour listeners will too.
Can you give a brief history ofwhy we started using the term
mall and how we think about ittoday versus how we kind of used
to think about it?
Alexandra Lange (05:20):
Mall is actually a term from landscape
architecture.
So you know, when you'rethinking about the National Mall
in Washington and a shoppingmall, they actually have the
same origin, which tends to kindof blow people's minds.
But that origin story has to dowith an Italian lawn bowling
game called Palo Maglio, whichis basically kind of like bocce
(05:42):
and croquet, like a combo of,let's say, bocce and croquet,
and that game came over toLondon in the 18th century and
the words Palamaglia got turnedinto Paul Mall, which is an
actual square in London.
Mall from that came to mean thecourt that Palamaglia was
(06:04):
played on, which was a long,thin strip of grass generally
surrounded by buildings.
So that form became known as amall.
And if you think about the verysimplest shape of the shopping
mall, which is one departmentstore at one end, one department
store at the other end, shopsin between and then usually
benches and fountains andplanters down the middle, like
(06:27):
that is the same shape as themall and that's actually the
same shape as the National Mall.
You know, from a game to aLondon Square, to this
ubiquitous American post-warshopping pattern, like all of
these things are malls.
Stephanie Rouse (06:41):
Knowing how an architect's mind works and how
you start with this like reallybroad concepts, concepts and
then kind of sketch and iterateand then all of a sudden you
have this physical manifestationof whatever you started with.
I can like just picture VictorGruen looking at one of the Pall
Mall courts and then workinghis way into this new design for
a shopping mall.
Alexandra Lange (07:00):
Yeah, it's interesting.
So the first indoor shoppingmall designed by Gruen was
Southdale in Edina, minnesota,which is a suburb of Minneapolis
and that in fact did not havethat long skinny pattern.
It was sort of a pinwheel shapewith, again, two department
stores and two banks of smallerstores but around a square, like
.
I think he was thinking more ofa town square rather than a
(07:23):
mall when he designed that one,but that was kind of an
inefficient pattern and it was alittle more complicated to fill
and to build.
And so while Southdale, like,has that kind of pattern, pretty
soon thereafter Gruen and othermall developers moved to the
like the long skinny pattern, Icall it the I shape, and that
was kind of mall history.
(07:45):
But it's actually justinteresting that you bring up
kind of the way that architectscan, you know, boil down a
pattern into its like geometricbasics.
Because I think that's one ofthe things that people find
really hard to do in a mallbecause they're so distracted by
the sights and the sounds andthe smells and the you know
clothes in the stores.
(08:06):
And so people often say, oh, Iget lost in the mall and I'm
like, well, you'll never getlost in a mall if you kind of
understand the basic designprinciples.
But it's very hard to you knowkind of drill down to those
design principles wheneverything about all of the
stuff in the mall is attemptingto distract you.
Stephanie Rouse (08:30):
Exactly, and you talk about pedestrian malls
in the book, which were aconcept that ultimately would
fail in most cities that triedit.
You wrote that 11% ofpedestrian malls actually
succeeded in the 21st century.
What was the issue with thesemalls and why did so few of them
succeed?
Alexandra Lange (08:41):
Yeah, pedestrian malls are really
interesting.
I live in Brooklyn and FultonMall in downtown Brooklyn is one
of that 11% that persisted, youknow, post 1960s, 1970s, heyday
.
The thing that's required for apedestrian mall to be
successful is a built inpedestrian population.
So some of the most successfulpedestrian malls are in beach
(09:04):
communities, college communitiesand other tourist centers.
So Boulder, colorado,burlington, vermont, santa
Monica, like those, are thereally famous ones, along with,
I would say, fulton Mall inBrooklyn.
So all of those places havegood public transportation
access, have a population thateither doesn't have a car or
doesn't want to have a car, akastudents, and so they can take
(09:28):
advantage of the pedestrianscale and the pedestrian
facilities.
But if you just put apedestrian mall in a city where
most people drive, that sort oftakes them out of the natural
pattern of the way the rest ofthe city is built and it becomes
very difficult to attractpeople to come downtown to shop
at that mall, and that's why somany failed.
Jennifer Hiatt (09:50):
I have a lot of lovely childhood memories at
Pearl Street in Boulder.
It's really one of my favoriteplaces to be.
One of the major observationsthat you make in the book is
that both of the majorprofessions that think about
shaping cities we were alreadytalking about architects, but
then also planning has failed totake notice of the act of
shopping as something more thanjust a distraction, but actually
a shaper of cities.
(10:12):
So why do you think that bothof these professions have
overlooked the mall and shoppingso much?
Alexandra Lange (10:19):
Well, I have a one-word answer to that that you
guys can probably anticipate,which is sexism.
I mean, who does the shopping?
I think that there are twokinds of shopping that are part
of people's daily routine, butmajority of it is done by women.
Half of that is utilitarianshopping you know, food shopping
(10:40):
, drugstore shopping, like basicerrands and the other half is,
let's say, you know, foodshopping, drugstore shopping,
like basic errands, and theother half is, let's say,
pleasure shopping, and theformer is considered sort of
boring and beneath notice andthe latter is considered to be
often a waste of time and soneither of those are really
taken seriously as a majorshaper of people's roots.
(11:01):
But I mean, I think in morerecent years, when people have
started to look at, say, sexismin transportation planning, one
of the things that's oftenbrought up is that women's daily
routes are much morecomplicated than men's daily
routes, let's say,stereotypically, by and large,
and most transportation systemsare designed for the
point-to-point commute, likefrom the residential area to the
(11:25):
center city and back, withoutany stops.
But a typical women's route willinvolve dropping kids off at a
daycare, picking up something atthe supermarket.
It has many more points and oneof the things that 21st century
transportation systems have totake into account is those more
complex routes.
Take into account is those morecomplex routes.
(11:49):
So I think that the mall insome ways is analogous to that,
because the mall was a positivething for these women in the
post-war era that often didn'twork and were stuck in the
suburbs to make their dailyround of errands much more
pleasant, because they would runinto friends at the mall.
Some of them had nurserieswhere they could drop off their
kids so they could do thoseerrands more efficiently.
So the mall is really a boon towomen, especially in that you
(12:11):
know, kind of post-war you knowtwo parents, one working, living
in the suburbs pattern and theimportance of that for making
the suburbs a more humane place,a less dystopian place, is
often left out because thoseactivities weren't considered so
important.
Stephanie Rouse (12:28):
We just had an example of a current example of
the mall and serving as thatkind of central hub for women,
connecting with our last bookMeet Me at the Library.
There's a library and I cannotremember which town it's in, but
they put a library in the malland it served as this huge draw
where parents bring their kidsfor story time or little
activities and then all of themoms get together and catch up
(12:51):
and have this little socialactivity as well.
So it was interesting how thesetwo episodes overlapped,
without really intentionallyoverlapping.
Alexandra Lange (12:59):
I think it's the Anna Rundell Mall in
Annapolis that has one of thelargest public library branches
in a mall, but it's not alone.
There are other ones, butthat's one of the largest and
I've definitely communicatedwith the people there because
it's such a great example ofbuilding community in this, you
know, capitalist space.
Stephanie Rouse (13:17):
So malls were built to sell fashion and
newness, and they had to.
You know, the shops have toturn over and pull the latest
new fashion.
So then the malls that you knowhoused all these shops were
doing the same thing, which isvery unlike most architecture
that we build to last, would yousay this has contributed to so
many dead malls in recent years,or are malls not understanding
(13:37):
this design characteristic ofredesign or die that kind of
shopping as a field has?
Alexandra Lange (13:44):
I feel like there are kind of two ways to
answer that question.
I mean the first way is thatmall architecture is built to
change, in the sense that thestorefronts can be swapped in
and out very easily and thatdoesn't necessarily have to make
any changes on, like the kindof common areas of the mall.
(14:04):
However, those common areas canstart to look very dated.
I mean, we've all already livedthrough many eras of kind of
you know what does publicarchitecture look like, and one
of the reasons that you knowmany malls start to decline is
because another mall is built intheir town and it number one.
(14:25):
Like you know, kind of itsiphons people off with its
newness, but often theaesthetics of that mall are more
contemporary, are morefashionable.
So people that sort of didn'tnotice that the old mall was
getting run down or maybe likehas the color and materials
palette that's no longer invogue really like see that when
the new mall opens?
So mall architecture itself haslike sort of infinite capacity
(14:48):
for change.
But we do all perceive thingsas being more or less
fashionable and you know, makinga materials decision at one
time can severely date yourproperty.
One of the malls that I talkabout in the book at length is
North Park in Dallas, which wasbuilt by the Nasher family and
opened in 1964.
(15:08):
And that mall was designed by EGHamilton, who was an architect
who'd worked for Minoru Yamasaki, and he designed it in this
really beautiful minimalist waywith, you know, poured concrete
floors and white brick and somevery delicate branding details.
And the same family still ownsthat mall and they have
basically preserved it.
(15:29):
And it's so interesting to methat the aesthetics of that mall
have probably kind of gone upand down and you know, like sort
of through the washing machineof fashion, but they are
fashionable again.
So by preserving it and kind ofkeeping the very, very simple
lines of that mall, theyactually like managed to keep it
(15:51):
fashionable for almost 60 yearsnow.
And when they added on to it inthe early 2000s they kept the
same materials palette.
They could change a few thingsyou know we can make much larger
pieces of glass now and theytook advantage of that but they
kept that same like white brick,concrete floors, very clean,
and it still looks great.
So I think that sometimes mallowners are too quick to freak
(16:15):
out about their materialspalette being dated rather than
trying to sort of showcase itand set it off, because every
material dates eventually.
Jennifer Hiatt (16:25):
It's almost impossible, at least in my world
, which partly I'm a lawyer anda planner.
When I think of malls, Iimmediately think of some of our
infamous First Amendment casesand you feature some of them in
the book such as AmalgamatedFood Employees Union versus
Logan Valley Plaza, lloydCorporation versus Tanner and
New Jersey Coalition Against Warin the Middle East versus the
(16:47):
JBM Realty Corp.
So what should our listenersknow about their personal rights
and potential public space whenthey are visiting a mall?
Alexandra Lange (16:55):
So I'm not a lawyer and that was one of the
most fascinating things for meto research in this book,
because the legal casesinvolving the mall are super
interesting and a lot of theSupreme Court and state Supreme
Court decisions are really wellwritten and that was just kind
of a world of writing andresearch that I'd never gotten
into before.
And then also the, let's say,the rightward drift of
(17:21):
legislation vis-a-vis the mallsas public space, the mall as a
place of protest, was also veryinteresting and you can see a
lot of parallels in politicstoday.
Yeah, you mentioned LoganValley Plaza.
That's a Supreme Court casefrom 1968, which was the first
time that the mall essentiallyencountered the law.
(17:42):
And that was a case.
It was sort of a strip mallwhere the union employees of the
supermarket in the mall wantedthe freedom to protest their
working conditions and initiallythe owners of the mall said
that they could not protest onthe property because it was
private property.
And that case went all the wayto the Supreme Court and
(18:03):
Thurgood Marshall actually wrotethe opinion for the majority
saying yes, the employees didhave a right to protest at the
mall and his argument in thatcase was that in the late 20th
century, main streets were oftenno longer the central space of
a town and malls were replacingthem, and so if malls were going
(18:26):
to replace them, they had tostill operate as a de facto town
square.
I mean, that's just kind of anincredible thing to read in 1968
.
Now, unfortunately, like overthe years since then, slowly
that right and that sort ofbelief that the mall was
essentially a town square neededto operate as such has been
chipped away, and at this pointthe question of whether you can
(18:48):
protest at the mall is a stateby state question.
It was, you know, kicked backto like state constitutions and
state Supreme Courts, so in themajority of states you cannot
protest at the mall.
A very famous example of thiswas during the Black Lives
Matter protests.
A group came to the Mall ofAmerica in Minnesota at
(19:10):
Christmastime and protested, andthey were all arrested because
Minnesota is not one of thestates where there are free
speech rights in the mall.
Jennifer Hiatt (19:18):
I think it's really interesting.
So Logan Valley Plaza is kindof having a resurgent as the
idea of social media has builtup.
And where is the public squarenow?
Right here in Lincoln, youcould probably go protest on O
Street and people will justdrive by you.
There's not a real collectivearea except our Capitol where
(19:39):
people go, and so I just thinkit's really fascinating.
We kicked the mall questionback to the states, but the
federal government keepsgrappling with social media.
And where are we going to comedown?
And if social media is a townsquare, will the mall question
come back up, as malls are kindof seeing a resurgence of people
coming back to the mall?
(20:00):
I think it will be aninteresting area of law as it
starts developing.
Alexandra Lange (20:05):
Yeah, that's really interesting.
One of the things thatinterests me about social media
and many people is its abilityto you know kind of broadcast
news, both verbally and visually, and I think one of the reasons
you need a public space togather in now is often sometimes
(20:25):
so you can transmit thosepictures of people gathering in
the public space.
It's why a lot of times peopleare angry that sometimes the
mainstream media is not coveringprotests enough, because
they're seeing all of thesepictures of protests on social
media and you're like this lookslike news.
So the ability to kind of getaround the mainstream media with
social media is important.
(20:46):
But there's also kind of afeedback loop between the IRL
gatherings and the onlinegatherings.
That I think is beneficial formass protest but also shows you
why the government might benervous about people sharing
protest on social media in thesame way that they are nervous
about people protesting at themall.
Stephanie Rouse (21:07):
It's an excellent point.
So a quote from your book isthat the mall has a lot to teach
urbanism.
And me, like I'm sure, someother listeners and we talked
about how planners havediscounted the value of the mall
at the beginning of the episodeprobably are saying, really,
but what do you think that mallscan teach us about urbanism?
Alexandra Lange (21:26):
I think the primary lesson is really just
about what people like to do.
I mean, why do people like themall?
People like the mall becauseit's open in all the seasons, it
has benches, it has bathrooms,it has coffee.
In a lot of places it's a placewhere you can have kind of
loose ties, social gatherings,run-ins, easy way to meet up
(21:49):
with people in a kind oflow-lift way.
And so I think all of thosethings are social and humanist
patterns that urbanism should beaccounting for.
If you know, one of the thingsthat urbanism is supposed to do
is bring people together, maketheir lives easier, and the mall
kind of concentrates all a lotof that in one place.
And I think it's really steppedinto the breach in a lot of
(22:11):
places where you know publicurbanism is not doing a lot of
work.
So I would like to see like thepublic functions of urbanism
(22:35):
take up some of that work, andyou see it in some places that
are trying to, you know, getmore public bathrooms, get more
public benches.
You know there's been a realrenaissance in urban parks, I
think that have more servicesand kind of more things built in
.
It's not just a field, butstill like there's a lot of room
for improvement out there and Ithink the mall has a lot of
(22:57):
good lessons.
Stephanie Rouse (22:58):
Yeah, you have a whole section on mall walkers,
which is something I knew.
You always knew about it and myfather-in-law retired a couple
of years ago and he became amall walker and, especially in
the winter months when it's badweather out, want to make sure
that he's safe when he's outwalking early in the morning,
and that's just something thatit's so hard for communities to
make.
You know their entire networkaccessible and free of cracks,
(23:22):
heaving sidewalks and you haveto deal with so many things like
tree roots getting in the wayof stuff, whereas the mall just
doesn't have any of those issuesand it's so much easier to be
that kind of accessible, saferspace.
Alexandra Lange (23:38):
Yeah, and hopefully he's built up like a
community of friends andacquaintances that he's also
walking with, if he's goingthere that frequently.
Stephanie Rouse (23:43):
That's also important for older people.
Yeah, he knows there's twoladies.
I can't remember he knows allabout them because they
apparently all go at the sametime.
But that was anotherinteresting thing that you
mentioned in the book about howCOVID really impacted a lot of
those networks that had beencreated at malls, as these mall
walking groups, and when themalls shut down during COVID
they lost that network.
Alexandra Lange (24:04):
Yeah, I mean I think with what we know now
about COVID, it's clear that ifthey had been masked, those
networks could have continued toexist and in fact that was
probably, you know, kind of oneof the safer activities that
they could have been doing.
So it's really too bad.
But yes, I mean the mall ingeneral acts as a social hub.
(24:25):
But yes, particularly for olderpeople, those mall walking
communities are important, likeat multiple levels for, you know
, public health, and COVIDreally broke that.
And I mean I heard anecdotallyabout some people that ended up
walking in mall parking lotssort of like around the outside
of the mall during COVID, whichseems sort of tragic to me
(24:45):
because really there's nothingless appealing than a mall
parking lot in most cases.
But just that kind ofidentification with place and
activity and trying to make sure, even in a time of crisis, that
you clung to like a bit of thatI think is a really important
lesson with how identifiedpeople become with particular
spots in their cities.
Jennifer Hiatt (25:07):
As Stephanie mentioned in the introduction,
we are both millennials and as ageneration, we do tend to get
accused of killing everything,including the mall, and a lot of
people say that it is becauseof our online shopping.
I found it very interesting asI was reading your book and I
kept thinking did onlineshopping really create the death
of the mall?
What do you think?
Alexandra Lange (25:28):
Online shopping did not create the death of the
mall.
I would say the death of themall is really like a three-part
problem.
Online shopping is definitelypart of it, but if you look at
the statistics on the percentageof retail, every year that was
done online, pre-pandemic itnever rose above about 20% of
(25:51):
retail sales, rose above about20% of retail sales.
During the pandemic it zoomedup to about 35%, but it started
going down almost immediatelywhen things began opening back
up.
So even after people had becomemore accustomed to the quote
unquote convenience of onlineshopping during COVID, they
quickly realized that there weremany things that they wanted to
(26:12):
shop for in person and in factthey had missed shopping in
person.
So online shopping took a chunk, but it was not the whole
problem.
I would say the larger problemwas number one.
The 2007-2008 recession took outa huge number of department
stores, especially the middleincome department stores that
(26:34):
had been the anchors for manymalls, and it was very hard for
malls to recover from thoseinitial draws no longer being
draws and then to fill thosevery large retail spaces like
that are kind of like the faceof your mall.
And then the third part of thedeath of the mall is that the US
was really, really overmalledin many, many cities and I've
(26:57):
told this anecdote and peoplegenerally are like oh yes, I
remember that when this happened, you know, initially in the
1960s there would have been onemall.
Then the suburbs get a littlemore built out, then there's
another mall and your city canprobably support like two to
three malls.
But then in the 90s, just kindof like the peak era of mall
building, developers would comein and build a new giant mall on
(27:19):
the very outer edge of theouter ring of suburbs and that
mall would cannibalize theshoppers of all of the other
malls, like there had stoppedbeing like new retail territory
at that point.
So people were just stealingtheir competitors' shoppers.
And if you look at any chartsof the number of retail square
feet per person in the US, it's,I think, almost double the
(27:43):
closest other industrializednations.
So we just have so much moreretail than we need.
So in some ways the death ofthe mall retail than we need.
So in some ways the death ofthe mall, while exaggerated,
because it's not the death ofall malls is right-sizing the
amount of retail square footagethat we have per person in the
US.
Stephanie Rouse (28:02):
So outside of the US, in the final section of
your book you start talkingabout other countries and it
feels like Latin America andAsian cities are actually
getting them all right withtheir designs.
What are the differences andwhat lessons could we learn in
reviving some of our defunctmalls?
Alexandra Lange (28:27):
you know, talk to people over the past like two
plus years since my book waspublished, because almost every
audience I have has people fromLatin America and Asia and they
start talking about their mallsand I'm like, yes, you're like
your mall is doing great, likethat.
That's why I have a finalchapter, because I'm hoping that
more people will write morebooks about the specific cases
of their malls.
In terms of, you know,countries and continents, I'm an
(28:47):
Americanist so I felt like whatI could best talk about was the
American mall.
I would say the big differencein both of those cases is that
the mall is much less suburbanand more urban.
Malls are typically vertical,at least to a certain extent,
you know, like up to eightstories, but more typically like
three stories, so it's a morecompact footprint, and they're
(29:09):
generally attached to publictransportation systems, so
they're not isolated in themiddle of a parking lot and they
are accessible on foot or onpublic transportation from
residential neighborhoods.
So in many cases they'reserving the same kind of quasi
public space function for theseneighborhoods, but everything
around them is more urbanized,so kind of as with the
(29:32):
pedestrian malls in the US.
If you have more of a built inpopulation that's literally like
right there, like right on topof your mall.
It gives it a better chance ofsuccess.
Jennifer Hiatt (29:43):
I find it very interesting that Gruen used the
term blight proof neighborhoodwhen he was talking about one of
his master plans for a bigshopping area, because, as we
were just talking about, that'snot necessarily true.
So now cities all over thecountry, including Lincoln,
actually are blighting parts oftheir existing malls.
What do you think that citiesshould be thinking about as we
seek to redevelop these areas?
Alexandra Lange (30:05):
as we seek to redevelop these areas.
Yeah, I mean, one of the thingsthat's so interesting about
Gruen is that he came from thisEuropean model.
He built the mall, but in hisinitial conception of the mall
he thought that the developersof the mall would then develop
housing, office space and otherservices around the mall.
In his vision, they always hada big parking lot, but there
(30:26):
were other uses that you couldhave walked between around the
mall.
In his vision, they always hada big parking lot, but there
were other uses that you couldhave walked between around the
mall.
What happened is basically thedevelopment community in the US
is very separated by type, andso retail developers don't want
to do housing development, andso even in those initial days,
the retail developers just soldoff their extra land and let the
(30:47):
housing developers do what theywanted to do, which was
cul-de-sac.
So it's really interesting thata lot of the most successful
mall redevelopments now arebasically making what was a
single-use property back intomixed-use, essentially
re-urbanizing it Like.
One of the best examples of this, I think, is Garden State Plaza
, which is a very large old mallin Northern New Jersey and it
(31:11):
actually is doing quite well,but the owners of the mall
decided that they wanted to makeit into more of a mixed use
community, and so now they'rebuilding housing and some like
co-working spaces in the extraparking lot of their mall and
they're even going to make anoutdoor green.
So right back to this townsquare idea that will complement
(31:34):
the sort of indoor town squareat the mall, and so, yeah,
they're really thinking of it asan opportunity in what is, you
know, a more densely built uparea now than it was when the
mall initially started.
An opportunity to, you know,make money, obviously, but also
create more of a pedestrian kindof almost town-like atmosphere
(31:55):
around their existing mall.
And I see things like thathappening with more distressed
properties also.
But I just like that examplebecause it's like there was
actually nothing wrong with themall, but I think the owners are
very smart to try to kind ofget ahead of the next wave.
Stephanie Rouse (32:10):
What's also encouraging is here at the
University of Nebraska, for acouple years now, one of the
professors his architecturestudio is focused on our
original mall and redevelopingit, because it's just covered in
a sea of parking, and thestudents each year come up with
all of these ways to incorporatenew housing and community
spaces and art studios and allthose, all these different ideas
(32:32):
for taking the existing malland then building it out into a
more of a community like whatyou're talking about.
Alexandra Lange (32:38):
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that
I was really hoping that thisbook would help with was give
professors, studio leaders, atext to give students to get
them excited about working onthe mall.
Because I feel like for a longtime, when the dominant
narrative about the mall wasdead malls and people were
almost kind of like glorying inthe ruin porn of the photos, the
(33:01):
idea of redeveloping a malldidn't seem very sexy and I felt
like, oh, you know, I know,architecture professors kind of
have to sell their studio.
So it's like would the youthpick a studio that was
redeveloping the mall?
So I thought, okay, if there'sthis text that talks about malls
in this more creative way,maybe that can help to encourage
more creative thinking, justgenerally speaking.
(33:21):
So it's great to hear thatthat's happening.
I also get asked about housinga lot, because obviously that is
the major crisis in our countrytoday.
A lot of people likeromanticize the idea of actually
inserting housing into the bodyof the mall, but I think really
building housing in the mallparking lot is the smartest and
(33:42):
cheapest way to do that.
Jennifer Hiatt (33:45):
Maybe the fact that the younger generation is
really excited about the early2000s with your book.
Now maybe they can make themalls really cool again and make
designing malls cool again.
Alexandra Lange (33:55):
I mean, it's always good to leverage
nostalgia into something that'skind of more than nostalgia
builds on nostalgia.
So I think that would be prettyfabulous.
I follow one Instagram accountof this woman who basically, you
know, dresses up like it'sstill the 80s and takes pictures
of herself in malls.
But she's too young to havedone that the first time around
(34:17):
and it's really fun and I feellike that, like that's the
proper spirit, like try to getinto an understanding of what
happened there and why they wereimportant to an older
generation.
Stephanie Rouse (34:28):
So, as this is booked on planning, in addition
to your book, which we recommendall of our listeners check out,
what other books would yourecommend our listeners get a
copy of?
Alexandra Lange (34:38):
I was going to recommend Amanda Hurley's book
Radical Suburb.
It's a great small book thatlooks at suburbs that aren't
(35:01):
stereotypical, not yourcul-de-sac suburbs.
To give the moms, who were alsothe architects, peace of mind
by having a lot of collectiveand communal space where the
kids could all run around in apack that could be seen from the
big pieces of glass in all oftheir houses but meant that the
kids weren't siloed in their ownbackyards, it's just a great
kind of alternative.
Look at what we're talkingabout when we talk about the
(35:22):
suburbs.
In terms of shopping history, Ireally love the Harvard Design
School Guide to Shopping, whichis this compendium that was
edited by Rem Koolhaas, amongothers, and came out of a big
studio that he did on shoppingat Harvard now almost 20 years
ago.
But it has a great deep dive onthe escalator and things like
(35:44):
that, really taking apart allthe parts of the mall.
And then also there've been abunch of recent really good
histories of the departmentstore which is obviously this
building block for the mall, andone of them is called when
Women Ran Fifth Avenue by JulieSatow.
And then a friend of mine,Elizabeth Evitz Dickinson, has
just written a biography ofClaire McArdle, who was an early
(36:08):
feminist designer whose careerwas really supported by
department stores just beforeand then after the war.
So all of those are really funthings to read.
Stephanie Rouse (36:19):
All great recommendations, all new to the
show.
Sometimes we get some repeats.
Alexandra Lange (36:24):
Yeah, I mean, I didn't scroll through all of
the shows so I wasn't sure, butI'm glad to offer new ideas,
yeah we have quite the librarybuilding now with this question
that we added a couple years ago.
Yeah, it's a great idea becauseI think every book has these
offshoots and subsets of thetopic, and so you can take it in
whatever direction interestsyou the most.
Stephanie Rouse (36:46):
Well, alexandra .
Thank you for joining us on theshow to talk about your book.
Meet Me by the Fountain AnInside History of the Mall.
Thanks for having me.
Jennifer Hiatt (36:55):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation with
author Alexandra Lange on MeetMe by the Fountain An Inside
History of the Mall.
You can get your own copythrough the publisher at
Bloomsbury Publishing or clickthe link in the show notes below
to take you directly to ouraffiliate page.
Remember to subscribe to theshow wherever you listen to
podcasts and please rate, reviewand share the show.
Thank you for listening andwe'll talk to you next time on
(37:15):
Booked on Planning.
Thank you.
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