Cathedrals Of Consumption

The term ‘cathedrals of consumption’ refers to ‘self-contained consumption settings that utilize postmodern techniques such as implosion, the compression of time and space, and simulation to create spectacular locales designed to attract customers’ (Ryan, 2005:2). That is to say, ‘not only shops and malls but also theme parks, casinos, and cruise lines, and other settings including athletic stadiums, universities, hospitals and museums’ (Ritzer, 2005:6, cited by Ryan, 2005:2). That they can be considered as cathedrals refers to the way in which consumption has replaced religion as ‘the dominant mode of contemporary public life’ (Goss, 1993:294), and thus these consumption cathedrals

settings

of

old,

have

‘the

become,

most

like

sensually

the

religious

satisfying

social

gathering places in the community’ (Kowinski, 1985:218, cited by Ryan, 2005:2).

In this piece I will locate the concept of ‘cathedrals of consumption’ within the broader urban and social landscape of UK and USA contemporary life, focussing specifically on shopping malls. I will then go on to consider a somewhat literal interpretation of the term, whereby shopping malls often bear a close

physical

and

symbolic

resemblance

to

religious

cathedrals. In this way, as Goss (1993:295-6) states, Developers have sought to assuage th[e] collective guilt over conspicuous consumption by designing into the retail built environment the means for a fantasized dissociation from the act of shopping … and have promoted the conceit of the shopping center [sic] as an alternative focus for modern community life.

I am arguing, then, that malls have been designed in ways which

not

only

disguises

their

true

material

function

(Gottdiener, 2000:275), but in fact elevates the shopping experience and allows the shopper to feel virtuous by manipulating the psychogeographical sense of awe, ‘greater purpose’ and ‘community’ generally associated with religious cathedrals.

Any attempt to locate an urban phenomenon such as shopping malls within an historical and social context must concede, as Hall (2006:6) states, that ‘the diversity of city types and processes of urbanisation cannot be reduced to a simple, linear evolutionary process’. Thus, what can be said about a city in the UK or USA may be very different to patterns of urbanisation in Developing or socialist countries. It is worth noting, then, that I am writing here of post-industrial cities of the UK and USA and I would argue that, with this focus, it is possible to see a broad template of change, both physical and social, which can be applied in a general way.

The development of contemporary cities can be seen in terms of a shift from industrial to post-industrial, Fordist to postFordist and modern to post-modern patterns of production and consumption. These concepts relate to complex ‘physical, political, economic, social, cultural and spatial practices and processes’ (Jayne, 2006:13) which are by no means altogether consistent even within one particular city (Hall, 2006:99).

However, broadly speaking there has been a shift which is closely related to the rise of a consumer society, linked to the post-war boom in mass production, and it is through this lens that Gottdiener (2000) identifies the concept of ‘consumption of space’ which, as will be seen, is highly important in the development of shopping malls.

Gottdiener (2000:266-8), then, begins with the burgeoning industrial cities of the early 1800’s where ‘neither capital nor the state provided segments of land for free recreational use’ (2000:266) and cities where sharply delineated, both socially and structurally, between the wealthy elite and the mass of labourers. Yet the Victorian reformers of the late 1800’s, ‘concerned about the social evils of industrial capitalism’ (2000:267), sought to design cities with green, open spaces for recreational use, such as the Garden Cities of England and the City Beautiful movement in the USA. Industrial cities of this era correspond to Fordist methods of mass production which are centralized, standardized and inflexible – a model which can be applied to political, cultural and social patterns and the physical structure of cities (Jayne, 2006:15). At the same time, the consumption

of

‘specially

prepared

spaces’

(Gottdiener,

2000:267) was extended from city parks and encouraged through [The] commercial but inexpensive amusement spaces, such as Coney Island in New York City and Brighton in England, [which] provided alternative spaces for the masses to the

dreary, boxed-in areas of housing within the inner industrial city (2000:267) Whist the rise of tourism, at this stage of the early 1900’s, remained largely the preserve of the upper classes, the scene was set for the production of ‘safe’ spaces of consumption, through the taming of nature for human use (2000:267).

In terms of the development of shopping malls, the most significant changes began in the 1950’s when ‘the burgeoning middle-class population along with well-paid segments of the working class took up residence on an unprecedented scale in areas outside the central city that were developed for housing’ (Gottdiener, 2000:268). This mass exodus to the suburbs, made possible by the rise of the automobile and other cheap, mass produced goods of the Fordist era, was further compounded by the declining importance of industrial manufacturing and the post-industrial rise of the service economy (Jayne, 2006:15). Thus, it can again be seen that the economic model – that is to say, the rise of specialist production, niche marketing and decentralization – affects and is reflected in changing social, cultural, political and structural patterns in the city.

The first malls, in 1950’s America, were developed to cater for these new suburban housing tracts and were designed around the growing use of automobiles. The earliest designers, like the early city planners, had utopian dreams in mind: to provide much-needed

pleasant

community

spaces

for

human

interaction, much as the market-place had done in times past (Ryan, 2005:4; Goss, 1993:297). Yet their dreams were not fulfilled because, as Ryan (2005:5) states, As soon as capitalists understood the great profit potential that could be realized from manufacturing community itself, there was no stopping their quest to extract profits from this ideal. Shoppers were seen as dupes who could be ‘environmentally conditioned’ with crude psychogeographical techniques (Goss, 1993:301) and, as more and more malls were built, so the competition to attract customers led to ever-greater efforts to pull them in. Thus, as Jayne (2006:80) states, Architectural designers imploded traditional concepts of urban form by managing to gather together all of the social amenities and shopping experiences of the ‘traditional’ downtown city street to the suburbs, by playing with space, light, representation and perceptions of safety.

Yet why this great need to dupe their customers? The answer to this question lies not only in the proliferation of malls and subsequent increased competition to attract customers, but also in the need to override the conflicting discourses of consumer society. Thus, as Hall (2006:111) states, The cultural shifts within which consumption was implicated made it far more than merely a functional fulfilment of need but a significant leisure activity in its own right … where the consumption of space and time is of equal cachet as the consumption of designer goods.

Yet at the same time a vague, disconcerting conflict exists within the consumer culture: There persists a high-cultural disdain for conspicuous massconsumption resulting from the legacy of a puritanical fear of the moral corruption inherent in commercialism and materialism, and sustained by a modern intellectual contempt for consumer society (Goss, 1993:294). The ‘morality’ of consumption – a hangover from more religious times, exemplified in the biblical notion of a camel passing through the eye of a needle with more ease than a rich man entering heaven – is, perhaps, deeply embedded within the collective consciousness. This unease has been compounded in more recent times by the work of such intellectuals as Veblen (1953), Adorno and Horkheimer (1969) and Haug (1986) (cited by Goss, 1993:294), who have condemned the emptiness, falseness and homogeneity of the consumer culture. Little wonder, then, that The contemporary shopper, while taking pleasure in consumption, cannot but be aware of this authoritative censure, and is therefore … driven by a simultaneous desire and self-contempt, constantly alternating between assertion and denial of identity (Goss, 1993:295).

In order to address this conflict, mall designers needed to not only disguise the true instrumental function of malls, but also to promote a fantasy within which shoppers can feel good about consumption. This is achieved through a variety of methods, often involving some kind of ‘theme’, all of which serve to promote ‘a fantasized dissociation from the act of shopping’

(Goss, 1993:295). A common theme is that of the idealized city street, whether this is of ‘Ye Olde Worlde’ or ‘High Tech’ variety (Gottdiener, 1995:89) or based on the bazaars and street markets of more exotic locales (Jayne, 2006:80). Regardless of the particular type of street depicted, the goal here is to appeal to and exploit ‘a modernist nostalgia for authentic community, perceived to exist only in past and distant places’ (Goss, 1993:296). What we have, then, is a carefully constructed reimagining of city streets, free of the uncomfortable aspects of reality which may jolt

shoppers out of their dreamlike

experience: An idealized social space free, by virtue of private property, planning and strict control, from the inconvenience of the weather and the danger and pollution of the automobile, but most important from the terror of crime associated with today’s urban environment (Goss, 1993:297). In this way, mall designers attempt to promote the sense of community and democratic public space associated with the marketplaces of old.

Yet alongside this well-documented city street theme there is, I would argue, another theme built into the very structure of many shopping malls: a symbolic association with religious cathedrals of the past. Thus, as Kearl and Gill (1998) state, Upon entry, one is immediately struck by the immensity of the mall structure. The sense of vast, open, larger than life space that one receives within both cathedrals and malls induces the sense of awe, wealth and power … One receives

the sense of an unseen force or person being in control, of some greater divine master plan. In this way, despite, or perhaps because of, the secularization of contemporary life, mall designers are able to tap into a lost sense of awe and direction, so that, as Gottdiener (1995:91) states, Individuals living in environments with few public spaces and low-density demographics, can find something that many of them lack and often crave when they enter the mall. This can be understood when we consider a Durkheimian definition of religion which ‘involves the reaffirmation of publicly standardized ideas, providing social solidarity and linking the individual to the broader social order’ (Kearl & Gill, 1998) – a definition which can easily be seen to apply to ‘consumption’ in contemporary life. We need only consider the UK and US governments’ entreaties for the public to ‘go shopping and take holidays’ in order to uphold the economy and defy the 9/11 terrorists (Jones & Smith, 2001), to understand how it may be that shoppers can feel they are ‘performing a meaningful part of the contemporary organic solidarity that binds not only individuals, but nations together’ (Kearl & Gill, 1998).

In conclusion, then, it can be seen that malls have been developed within a particular social, cultural and economic context. Designed around the increased use of automobiles of a large, suburban population, they have become not only places

of consumption but spaces to be consumed in their own right. Yet this concept of malls as spaces of consumption has been used as a technique to disguise their true, material function and

distract

shoppers

from

their

‘guilt’

around

such

conspicuous consumption. To this end, designers have exploited the nostalgia for community and safe public spaces by employing a crude psychogeography. Whilst the replication of bygone city streets and marketplaces is one, well documented, method, I have argued that the structure of many shopping malls instils a sense of awe which resonates with cathedrals of old and allows the shopper to feel they are part of a spiritual, not just a physical, community.