Reading 1

Unit 1- Reading 1

Page 3

The architecture of marketplace

Buildings are among the most lasting of human creations. Their forms and functions are evidence of the dynamic social life that has long been tied to centers of economic and political power.

One ancient structure and gathering place, the marketplace, has evolved into what we call today the regional shopping center or mail. It is often constructed on a site so big that it requires a location outside of the crowded urban center. There it sometimes develops into a commercial rival to the older city center.

In many ways, these 21st-century mails are nothing new.

In fact, they follow a long tradition of commercial expansion that began with the development of the first long-distance trade networks and markets. These markets were temporary at first, but they became more permanent with the rise of cities in the Middle East about five thousand years ago. They grew alongside the rivers, harbors, and overland caravan routes that connected the swelling towns of the agricultural era.

The population growth and economic prosperity of the agricultural society made possible the advancement of specialized craftspeople and merchants. These people met to barter, buy, or sell their merchandise in a place that was accessible, safe, and regulated. By 2000 BC, in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur (in what is now Iraq), the covered bazaar and the shop-lined street had established itself.

The traditional bazaar consists of shops in streets that can be closed off by gates at each end. This follows the historical town-planning requirement that commercial and residential areas be kept strictly apart. Though they are far from uniform, bazaars are typically divided into various sections that each specialize in a single trade or craft.

In small towns, the bazaar can be as small as a single covered street, while in large cities it can be a vast area filled with maze-like passageways. The Grand Bazaar of Tehran is ten kilometers long, while the one in Istanbul, dating from the 15th century, has more than 58 streets and 4,000 shops.

Historically, as in modem times, the bazaar was a source of tax revenue for the government. In return, the government provided the bazaars with a system of internal security and justice.

In the Greek cities of the 5th century BC, the marketplace was the agora.

The historian Lewis Mumford describes the agora as an open-air “place of assembly … where the interchange of news and opinion played almost as important a part as the interchange of goods.” The agora was also a place for seasonal festivals and sports such as horse racing.

The expansion of the agora in both physical size and variety of traded goods reflected the shift in the Greek economy from neighborly rural trading to long-distance multicultural exchange. The descendants of the agora are the piazzas and plazas in both Europe and the Americas.

One of the most appealing variations on the model of the ancient marketplace was the European arcade that appeared in the 18th century.

An arcade was typically a covered set of city streets similar to the bazaar. but it retained some of the openness of the agora through the use of vaulted, or arched, skylights. One of the first arcades was the Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg, Russia, built between 1757 and 1785.

It has an open floor that simulates the Italian piazza but is covered by a glass roof that imitates the openness of the agora even during cold Russian winters. The Gostiny Dvor remains one of the finest shopping centers in Northern Europe.

In Southern Europe, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, named after the first king of united Italy, opened in Milan in 1867.

Vaulted iron and glass ceilings provide both shelter and light for shopping in the middle of a dense city.

A young Viennese architect named Victor Gruen was among the many visitors who were favorably impressed by the Galleria. In the 1950s, Gruen was commissioned to design a regional shopping mall in the state of Minnesota in the northern United States. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II served as the starting concept for his mail design.

The cold weather in Minnesota posed a special challenge to shopper comfort. Gruen’s approach was to enclose the whole building. The mall was built away from big cities and was accessible mainly by automobile, so it required a sea of automobile parking spaces outside. The result, called Southdale, was a spacious suburban destination.

It attempted to retain the inviting festivity of the agora, the energy of the bazaar, and the lightness of the arcade. It included enhanced climate control, easy access, and a range of other inviting conveniences and attractions. Southdale soon became the archetype for the modern mall.

Since Southdale, huge regional shopping malls have sprung up all over the world.

They commonly include several main “anchor” stores, an ice skating rink, movie theaters, a themed hotel, and an amusement park or other major attraction. Such huge shopping and entertainment centers depend on the willingness and ability of people to travel some distance and shop or play for long periods of time.

In the early 2000s, hundreds of such mails were constructed in the People’s Republic of China.

In 2008, a vast complex in the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai Mali, attracted over 37 million visitors in its first year alone. The mail, one of the largest in the world, features over 1,200 stores, a marine aquarium, and an Olympic-size ice skating rink. It is a magnet for visitors, and its surrounding neighborhood has been called “the new heart of the city.”

Otherworld malls of note include the Istanbul Cevahir, the Mail Taman Anggrek (Orchid Garden Mali) in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada, which features a water park.

From moveable markets to bazaars and agoras, to the sprawling modern regional mall. The social function of a marketplace has changed greatly.

One thing remains the same: these centers of trade and retail marketing indicate economic prosperity and serve as global status symbols.