A lot of media attention has been given recently to the B.C. government’s new $15 millon “HIPSTER is not A REAL JOB” ad campaign. But those interested in the evolving urban landscape would be wise to follow a different, seemingly less controversial campaign. Hitting the sound waves on local radio stations like 102.7 the Peak, West 4th recently aired its Genuinely Vancouver advertisement: a blatant assault on the shopping mall industry with the tagline: FORGET MALLS. BE GENUINE. SHOP KITSILANO’S WEST 4TH AVE.
The significance of this act needs a little bit of context. The shopping mall was successfully introduced into North America’s suburban landscape shortly after the Second World War. Victor Gruen – widely acknowledged as its inventor and, ironically, a large advocate of pedestrianism – envisioned the mall as a surrogate to the congestion and chaos of the urban city centre, accommodating all the functions normally associated with the metropolis. This placed the shopping mall as a direct descendent of—and competitor against—its past civic models, such as the commercial ‘Main Street’.
Through intense analysis and observation of urban conditions relating to commerce, mall planners, designers, and managers did everything in their power to improve upon the urban shopping experience and create safer, quieter and more restful environments protected from the elements. Their successes are blatantly evident in the proliferation of the mall around the globe.
This brings us back to West 4th – a ‘street’ – mounting an attack on the triumphant shopping mall industry….an urbanism equivalent of David and Goliath. Beyond the interesting fact of several street-oriented businesses pooling resources – via the Business Improvement Association – to act like a single commercial entity and mount a collective wide-spread campaign, it is not hard to see that the implications of this are extremely important to the urban landscape.
What does this mean? How will this story unfold?
Only time will tell, but one thing is certain: the success of the shopping mall was intimately connected to the design of the environment it created, beyond the commercial businesses it housed. It attempted to embody the best attributes of public space—the intense, pedestrian-focused and human-scale of its ancestor—while discarding the rest—traffic, inclement weather, etc. The approach taken by West 4th, on the other hand, focuses attention dominantly on the ‘240 unique businesses’ along its path and in doing so misses a larger and more significant point: that in order to compete, they must create the right environment…and like Gruen and his successors knew well, this comes down to innovative urban design.
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Erick Villagomez is one of the founding editors at Spacing Vancouver. He is also an educator, independent researcher and designer with personal and professional interests in the urban landscapes. His private practice – Metis Design|Build – is an innovative practice dedicated to a collaborative and ecologically responsible approach to the design and construction of places. You can also see some of his drawing and digital painting adventures at Visual Thoughts.
