![]() ![]() "Developers realized they could put a large, flat building in the middle of a field and quickly make money - so for decades. The insane popularity of the mall ultimately meant that corporations built too many of them. Seph Lawless The empty mall at Rolling Acres in Akron, Ohio. More than 30,000 live plants act as natural air purifiers, which is helpful as the mall is large enough to require its own zip code.īoth Southdale and The Mall of America still stand today, but whether or not they'll survive the culling of retail chains, or succumb and become dead malls, remains to be seen. With no central heating, indoor temperatures are maintained year-round with solar energy, skylights, and lighting. This may seem like it'd be an environmental disaster, but the mall does its part to be green. The gigantic Mall of America takes up 96.4 acres - enough to fit seven Yankee Stadiums inside. ![]() Minnesota also hosts one of the biggest malls in the nation, and it attracts approximately 40 million visitors a year. It cost $20 million, which went a long way back in 1956. ![]() It has undergone numerous renovations and store closings over the years, but when Southdale first opened, it was downright glamorous. "You should have left downtown downtown," architect Frank Lloyd Wright grumpily proclaimed during his visit to Southdale. The new malls were introverted: Everything was focused on the inside. Until this first enclosed shopping mall, retail areas were characteristically extroverted. Americans were enthralled by their automobiles, and the mall would be primarily used for shopping, but also for relaxation, green space, food, and fun. Gruen wanted to recreate the pedestrian experience of European cities by designing a place for the community in the deserts of suburbia. It has a central atrium, two floors, and escalators. Designed by Victor Gruen in 1956, the Southdale Mall is a climate-controlled complex. The idea of the American mall began in Minnesota, and that's where it reached its peak.Įdina, Minnesota is home to the very first enclosed shopping mall. To see all those big looming spaces so empty now - it's a childhood haunting." What Shopping Centers Were Like Before The Era Of Dead Malls We were the last of the free-range kids, roaming around malls, not really buying anything, but just looking. Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, says, "For kids of the '80s especially, dead malls have a very strong allure. Today, as abandoned malls have become the norm, the very notion of these indoor shopping centers has taken on an entirely different character. Mallrats, Clueless, The Blues Brothers, and Dawn of the Dead all have characters who spend major time in malls (though one just happens to be filled with zombies). The media reflected this, as many films - especially ones from the 1980s and 1990s - heavily feature shopping malls as important locations. Add in the social gathering aspect, and it's easy to see how the mall became as iconic as it did. The wide variety of goods in one place was like a Sears catalog come to life. Malls became cultural symbols of the time, as well as marketplaces. They purchased glistening new homes and went shopping to fill their spacious rooms and closets. This was when the wealthy (and usually white) people migrated away from urban zones and into the suburbs. Flood & decayįrom a floating warship cemetery in France, a forgotten love hotel in Japan to a flooded theme park in New Orleans, Henk searches for the beauty of their desolation and pinpoints the richness of their decay.Malls enjoyed a booming heyday in the 1970s and 1980s - even as the economy was tanking. This pocket size book shows his most iconic photos of the past 25 years, including some unpublished material and anecdotes. Henk started exploring in the early 1990s, built the website abandoned places and found out that more people shared his enthusiasm. In 2007 his first book got published. The book I bought is already his 5th. When I saw this book I recognized the fascination. Dutch Boeing 787 pilot Henk van Rensbergen flies around the globe and in his free time goes out to explore the abandoned places of our world.ĭuring my own travels, I sometimes discovered an abandoned house or even a complete street….I took many pictures, wanting to capture the beautiful decay of these places, wondering what happened, who lived here. I came across this little book a while ago and was immediately fascinated by it. ![]()
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