Shopping Malls: Nouveau Vulgarity?

[Daniel Rogov]

Including food and fashions, sporting goods and upswing restaurant, including a $400 sushi tasting menu. In Forbes Online – a list (with photographs) of what some consider the 10 most prestigious shopping malls in the world. http://www.forbes.com/style/2008/08/01/ ... yahoofront

The malls go from Melbourne to Tokyo and from Manhattan to Las Vegas. Why do each and every one of these seem to very, very nouveau-vulgar to me?

Best
Rogov

[Ian Sutton]

Can't abide the places

I presume the Melbourne one is the one with the shot tower in (classy), but which they've now squeezed more shop space in so it's much more obscured. The refit about 5 years ago tried to make it look 'Urban' - don't ask a designer to do Urban and why would you want to make soemthing look dark, run-down and sleazy anyway

Now give me a nice arcade any time

regards

Ian

[Daniel Rogov]

In my travels I have found only two shopping malls that I enjoyed..... the first in Monte Carlo (on the Rue des Beaux Artes, between the Hotel de Paris and the Hotel Hermitage), a place that boasts shops so expensive that all most mortals can do is admire them; and the second, the Peachtree Mall in Atlanta, one of the few malls I have found in which good taste reigns supreme.

As far as all of the others into which I have ventured from Tel Aviv to San Francisco and from Greenland to the Buenos Aires, no thank you!

Best
Rogov

[Shlomo R]

Can't abide the places

I presume the Melbourne one is the one with the shot tower in (classy), but which they've now squeezed more shop space in so it's much more obscured. The refit about 5 years ago tried to make it look 'Urban' - don't ask a designer to do Urban and why would you want to make soemthing look dark, run-down and sleazy anyway

Now give me a nice arcade any time

regards

Ian

I saw the mall in Melbourne with the shot tower about 16 years ago, and thought it was rather nice.

[Matilda L]

Malls seem to be the way shopping is going: old streets of shops are falling into disuse; retailers are gathering in the malls where the landlord keeps things in good repair and they are guaranteed a crowd of passing shoppers, who will pass and shop each day. In Australia, lots of the big shopping malls are owned by the same firms, which somehow leads to each mall having the same combination of shops. True variety is becoming a rarity.

Matilda

[Shel T]

JUst an observation, and I guess a fairly obvious one, shops/shopping/brand names and branding in general, have become so international, that with rare exceptions, if you were to be kidnapped, blindfolded and transported to a shopping mall somewhere in the world and had your blindfold removed, LOL i defy you to tell us where in the world you are!

[Stuart Yaniger]

Did you shop at the Ferry Building in SF? It's a tacky, nouveau-riche, yuppified horror. God help me, I love the place.