MATERIALIZING THE GHOSTS OF CAPITALISM

Photo taken with iPhone
Downtown Manhattan facing the 9/11 Memorial 

After briefly looking into typologies of control, this post will try to concisely review the various forms in which these typologies were materialized. What were the materials most appealing to the corporate architects that designed the mega-malls and spaces of managerial power and control? And why were they found to be appealing? In Goss’s study on mall typologies, he makes an interesting observation writing:

“Bridgewater Common in Bridgewater, New Jersey, for example, has three distinct leasing districts designed to appeal to specific market segments and, by implication, not to appeal to others: The Common Collection contain upscale boutiques and includes marble floors, gold leaf signage, brass accents, individual wooden seating, and extensive foliage; The Promenade contains stores catering to home and family needs, storefronts have a more conservative look, and aluminum and steel features and seating are predominant; The Campus contains stores catering to a “contemporary clientele” with dynamic window displays, plastic laminate, ceramic tiling, bright colors, and neon signage (Rathbun 1990,19-21). Almost every shopping center marks the distinction between high-end and low-end retail by such environmental cues” (Goss 1993)

Goss argues that, apart from the segregation made between the exterior and interior of the wall, where only people admitted in are the ones allowed in by the security; there is a strong felt discrimination within the walls of the mall, specifically between each level. He further elaborates on this point explaining:

“Within the shopping center itself, social segregation is reproduced through separation of specific functions and of class-based retail districts. Fiske et al. (1987, 110) describe an example of the vertical structuring of mall space according to the social status of the targeted consumers, and while the exact homology is seldom realized so neatly elsewhere, interior spaces are carefully structured to produce appropriate micro-contexts for consumption.” (Goss 1993)

Goss further expands on the use of reflective glasses which, “add to the decorative multiplication of images and colors, double the space and the shopping crowd, and reflect shoppers, asking them to compare themselves with the manikins and magical commodities on display…” (Goss, 1993). However, considering the date in which Goss’ study was made, various changes have taken shape within the realms of aesthetics, technology, and the economy. What may have been used to lure shoppers in the 1990s may even be viewed as unattractively outdated today. Looking closely at the award-winning mall Phoenix Market City in Mumbai designed and completed in 2013 by the architectural firm Benoy, the materials predominantly used are concrete, glass and steel on the exterior and interior with polished mirrored surfaces that wrap the stacked escalators, a total of 5 atriums with glass and steel skylights highlight these vertical circulation cores. Interestingly, looking at this recent model, built exactly 20 years after Goss’s paper, the use of glass and mirrors has withstood the test of time. In Utopia’s Ghost, Reinhold Martin delves deep into the implications of the use of mirrors in architecture he writes:

“…an architecture of mirrors does not merely reflect, whether directly or through a sort of disciplinary transliteration, the protocols of new socioeconomic arrangements. It helps to produce those arrangements, in space and time. […] It belongs to late capitalism […] It means that with postmodernism, architecture’s immanence is secured by its status as an artwork: as an Architecture, that is.” (Martin 2010 p.106)

Martin elaborates further writing:

“…these materials do not simply represent the network (referring to the “global network”); in combination with many others, they are the network, both as representation and as things. Like the processes that produce them, the exchanges that consume them, and the arrangements that organize them, they are concrete, tangible. The tricks with mirrors and other real materials performed by corporate globalization produce the illusion that there is an illusion; the illusion that their materiality is illusory, unreal, derealized. The illusion that there is an illusion – neither a double negative nor a tautology – also describes what a new stage in commodity fetishism might actually look like: the inability simply to look at something directly, rather than attempt to see through it. This mode is distraction draws us in even as it keeps us out.” (Martin 2010, p.121-122)

This terrifying and highly evocative observation could sum up the notion of what a shopping mall on a large parcel of an “island” meters away from a slum in Mumbai represents. Which drives one to question how do we escape this vicious circle? What will break this loop? How will this new re-interpretation of a marketplace/mall/public space materialize? Perhaps this will seem reductionist but a quick look at the locally available materials would be a good start, firstly because the construction of the building would be carried out by locals who already have developed the skills of fabrication and secondly, for the simple reasons of sustainability in terms of transportation and distribution.