Shopping centers have created a true global network. The passages and streets of these enormous standardized pavilions equipped with large air conditioning units, sanitary blocks, catering zones, play areas, cinemas, sports facilities… have become some of the main urban thoroughfares for shopping, but also for meeting with acquaintances, entertainment, and going out. Regardless of the emotions they evoke, shopping centers are, according to a 1986 ‘Consumers Reports’ study, ranked among the 50 wonders that sparked a revolution in the quality of consumer life, alongside electric lawn mowers, birth control pills, antibiotics, smoke detectors, transistors, and personal computers.
In fact, the concept is almost as old as trade itself. From the beginning, they were designed to facilitate shopping for customers, consolidate and enhance diverse offerings, and make life more comfortable – and they have succeeded in that.
Historical Gems
Ancient societies along trade routes formed marketplaces, a kind of precursor to today’s shopping centers. The Romans displayed their tables, and even covered stalls with various goods, in marketplaces located in forums, and this form has remained present in many Islamic countries from those times to the present.
However, it is known who was the first to cover, or rather, to place shops in a stone building. The Market of Emperor Trajan in ancient Rome was built in 100 AD and is the first purpose-built shopping center by its concept. One of the earliest stone centers and certainly one of the most beautiful is the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, opened in 1460, with 61 trading streets, gilding on the ceiling, and over 4000 sales points. Today’s American and Asian shopping malls hardly compete with that. In the Islamic world, there are many preserved historical gems such as the beautiful Al-Hamidiyah Souq in the Syrian city of Damascus from the 19th century, the Isfahan Grand Bazaar from the 10th century, and the Tehran Bazaar stretching over 10 covered kilometers.
Nevertheless, the modern philosophy that is still applied today, which is about purpose-built not only for trading but also for social gathering centers, was first applied in 1785 during the construction of Gostiny Dvor in St. Petersburg, with 100 shops. Europe also has its still functioning historical centers such as the Paris Marche des Enfants-Rouges from 1628 or the Oxford Covered Market opened in 1774. These, in turn, prompted further openings, such as the Paris Passage du Caire in 1798 and the Burlington Arcade in London in 1819. Soon the concept was introduced to Americans, and in Rhode Island, New York, in 1828, The Arcade was built, the first concept of space with arcades and shops. The second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century made this construction scene extremely dynamic, leading to constructions in Milan, Moscow, Cleveland, and Dayton.
First in the Modern World
Researchers believe that the first shopping center as we know it today was actually born in 1920 in California, where already advanced supermarkets gathered smaller shops around them like magnets. Others claim that the title should go to a ‘cluster of shops’ in Baltimore, USA, which first cleared the area around them for – parking. Now, whether the building or parking is more important is less significant than the fact that today we imply both. During that period, partly due to turbulent European years, the USA took the lead in development, so the first enclosed center located in the suburbs, thus accessible only by vehicle, was built in Kansas City in 1922. By 1931, Highland Park Shopping Village in Dallas introduced customers to the concept of a center with the first organized and supervised parking, and with shops formed into a small village with their backs turned to the access road. The first center you could literally enter from your car, that is, from an underground parking lot so you wouldn’t get wet in the rain or dirty in the wind, opened in 1956 in the suburbs of Minneapolis, and proudly carries the name The Mall of America.
Pioneer Builders
Regardless of history, the phenomenal growth and expansion of modern shopping centers over the past hundred years is mainly linked to or follows population migrations after World War II, when there was also a similarly strong expansion of the automobile market. According to Consumers Research data, by 1960 there were 4500 shopping centers in America that accounted for 14 percent of retail sales, by 1975 their number had increased to 16,400 and they began to take 33 percent of the retail market, and by 1987 the share in sales exceeded 50 percent. Americans significantly jumped ahead in the early 50s when greenfield investments were strongly encouraged, but the rest of the world quickly followed this trend, perhaps not quantitatively but still. Centers today are places of sale, but also places of socialization within their communities, and new urban centers, dislocated from the main city squares into buildings that are no longer necessarily just in the suburbs. Furthermore, shopping centers are also a true testing ground for new architectural and construction ideas and solutions, as shown by the historical overview from the very beginning.
