ABSTRACT
Benjamin's original exposes brief, critical, history of the shopping mall. Not only does the shopping mall represent a direct typological evolution of the Parisian arcade. Spatial qualities displayed in the nineteenth-century Parisian arcade also inform this typological lineage. If a more enlightened perspective is to be applied to the history of the shopping mall, an unravelling of the pseudo-science behind its spatial formula must therefore be the first port of call. This schism is the instrument that has allowed the mall to create its global shopping environment, editing out the problems of urban life in favour of a sheltered utopia of consumption. It is, however, China's unprecedented urban expansion that appears to offer the most potent environment within which to re-balance the machinic assemblage of the shopping mall. Theoretically, in such a scenario, the mall can assimilate itself into the myriad aspects of urban life in a more complete manner one that is perhaps closer to Victor Gruen's original intention.
