购物广场的兴起，带来退化的公共空间 / How China’s ‘Mall Mania’ Destroys Local Communities
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[Image: Global Harbor mall in Shanghai]
中国城市最迷人的一个方面就是有活力的街道生活。商店和餐厅时常将人行道视为商业的延伸，将街道改为厨房、工作坊、或者是商品摆设。举个例子，穿行在上海迷人的街道上，或许会遇到很多开敞的铺面，提供给邻居友人们吃饭、聊天或玩麻将。在这层意义上，人行道已经成为了买卖商品和社会交换的场所。然而伴随着社交媒体和购物广场的出现，这些功能正在逐渐消失。
对比周围的社区，中国的购物广场常常像天外来客一样，空降到一个地方而不考虑现有的空间和社会结构。作为一个新世界，商场占据了传统的公共领域空间。购物广场的所有事物都是人造的，甚至气候都是被控制的。
在美国建筑师迈克尔·索金（Michael Sorkin）主编的著作《主题公园的变化》（Variations on a Theme Park）中，我们看到了新自由主义的意识形态，通过市场对社区和市政机构的逐渐侵蚀，导致了公共空间宜居性的逐渐衰落。玛格丽特-克劳福德（Margaret Crawford）是伯克利大学建筑学教授，她在这本书的文章中延续了这个主题，她认为购物广场代表了“另一种社区，但提供了一种公共交往空间的错觉”。
的确，主题公园和购物广场有很多相同点。它们都是对真实世界的“改良版”复制品，通过几个既定的出入口来进行私人控制，而且有明确的界限。不能遵守内部规章的人不能存在于这天堂似的空间景象里。例如，很难见到流浪汉和街头艺人。购物广场常常处于与世隔绝的永恒春天里。在那里大自然被人工美化，气候总是宜人的，绿色空间也没有经历过真实自然世界会存在的干扰和摧残。每一寸空间都被用来惊艳访客，从而刺激他们更多地消费。
早在2002年，荷兰建筑师雷姆·库哈斯就提到建筑空间是如何促进消费欲望的：“购物可以说是最后留存的公共活动。购物已经渗透、殖民、甚至代替了都市生活的方方面面。城镇中心、郊区、街道，以及新建的机场、火车站、博物馆、医院、学校，甚至互联网也被购物机制和购物空间塑造。”
此外，购物广场消耗了很多能源（空调等）。在现代社会，我们需要更智能的构造来确保户外街道生活受到保护。否则，中国将会面临（其实已经面临）一个与美国很多城镇相似的局面--被汽车统治，人行道消失。
比利时哲学家Lieven de Cauter将此定义为“胶囊社会”。当下比以往任何时候的情况更甚，人们选择生活在像汽车和商场这样的蚕茧里，逃避社交互动。在欧洲，当大多数商场还是小尺度的时候，它们就已经撕裂了城市的历史肌理。在过去的十年里，中国汽车和商场的数量增长翻了一番多，这个趋势仍然在持续。按照De Cauter的话，这使中国社会变得越来越“胶囊化”。
当我们追溯20世纪中西方世界购物商场的发展时，可以看到从以纯购物为目标到以娱乐购物为目标的极大转变。
从19世纪50年代开始，为了达到拖延我们在室内的时间、刺激消费的宗旨，全世界商场的室内环境都发生了演变。最早，大多数位于郊区的美国商场只有开车才可到达。随着19世纪80年代末的城市复兴运动，出现了伴随着老城中心的再发展，并结合露天式空间（户外街道，无屋顶）的购物广场，例如圣地亚哥市的霍顿广场。
穿行在中国兴起的城市中，人们会觉得这个国家的新兴中产阶级仍然偏爱闪闪发光的大理石地板装饰，喜欢带空调系统的室内空间，而且是昂贵奢侈品牌的购买者。这样认为无可厚非，然而这些商场的受欢迎程度实际上是难以测量的。其实大多数商场没有太多利润，并且缺乏消费者，仅仅是餐饮区被经常使用。2016年，上海一些商场关闭了，例如位于淮海路的太平洋百货。同时，新商场仍然被建造着。早在2004年，中国前总理温家宝已经发出了“购物广场病”的警告，要警惕仅凭靠投机而不是迎合消费需求而建造的购物广场。
当代中国的购物广场也可以被视为一种主题公园概念的演绎。它们提供另一个供人逃避现实的世界：那是一个完全受控的空间，没有任何危险或不愉快的意外。它们被设计成精致的娱乐活动乐园，吸引消费者增加消费。为了让自己显得更独特，很多商场选择了不同的主题方式，例如位于金沙江路的具有新古典主义的环球港，或是作为艺术广场的K11。
在中国高密度的城市环境中，我们能发现更多独特的购物广场。与西方的购物广场常常位于郊区且只能驾车前往不同，中国的商场常常处于市中心且靠近地铁站，并且步行距离就能到达高密度的居住综合体。然而，它们对传统城市空间风貌的挑战是相同的。既有的空间和社会结构被破坏，并且出现了金融排斥的现象，即很多社会群体被商场的排外性和昂贵的产品排除在外。
购物广场虽然对购物狂来说是个非常有吸引力的宜人场所，但它们无疑也是造成社会结构瓦解的一个原因，在中国也不例外。购物广场就像替代性的社会，虚拟的现实被包裹在玻璃、钢筋、和大理石中，匆匆建造在被牺牲掉的传统街道上。它们也许会给城市更新创造暂时的空间，但也会为此付出代价，这些代价包括：街道上的社区亲密性、在环境中的个人认同感、以及不可逆的城市整体性衰败。
One of Chinese cities’ most charming aspects is their energetic street life. Shops and restaurants frequently see the sidewalk as an extension of their business, repurposing it as a kitchen, a workshop, or perhaps a store display. Walking through the charming streets of Shanghai, for example, one may come across open doors giving onto groups of neighbors and friends eating, chatting, or perhaps playing mahjong. In this sense, sidewalks have become places for trading goods and engaging in social exchanges. Yet with the rise of social media and the shopping mall, these quotidian features are gradually disappearing.
In comparison with the communities around them, China’s shopping malls often have the air of spaceships, dropped into place without any heed for existing physical and social structures. As surrogate worlds, malls occupy the spaces of traditional public spheres. Everything within them is artificial; even the climate is controlled.
In “Variations on a Theme Park,” a selection of essays edited by the American architect Michael Sorkin, we read about how neoliberal ideology, with its gradual erosion of community and civic institutions at the invisible hands of the market, brings about the gradual decline in the livability in public spaces. Margaret Crawford, a professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, who contributed one of the essays to the book, continues this theme in her assertion that malls represent “an alternative sense of community that offer a false sense of public interaction.”
Indeed, theme parks and malls share many common features. Both are “improved” replicas of the real world: perfectly defined spaces that are privately controlled through selective access. Everyone who fails to live by the “house rules” will be banned from the vision of paradise that malls offer, from homeless people to street musicians. Malls are usually designed as islands of eternal spring, where nature is artificially polished so that the climate is always tolerable, and green spaces come without the inconvenient imposition of the real, natural world on them. Every square meter is utilized to cajole the visitor into spending more money.
As early as 2002, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas noted how architectural spaces facilitated the urge to consume: “Shopping is arguably the last remaining form of public activity. Shopping has infiltrated, colonized, and even replaced almost every aspect of urban life. Town centers, suburbs, streets, and now airports, train stations, museums, hospitals, schools, and the internet are shaped by the mechanisms and spaces of shopping.”
In addition, malls consume a lot of energy. In a modern society, we require smarter structures to ensure that outside street life is protected. Otherwise, China will face — and is already facing — a situation similar to many towns in the U.S. where cars dominate and sidewalk life has disappeared.
More than ever, people are choosing to live in cocoons such as cars and malls, eschewing social interaction — something that Belgian philosopher Lieven de Cauter has called the “capsular society.” In Europe, while most malls are small in scale, they have still managed to tear through the historical urban fabric of our cities. During the last decade, the number of cars and malls more than doubled in China, and the trend is continuing.
As we trace the development of malls through the 20th century in the Western world, we see a remarkable shift from targeted shopping to recreational shopping. Since the 1950s, the interior environments of malls worldwide have been gradually domesticated, with the aim of prolonging our time inside and stimulating consumption. These developments have been followed by an urban renaissance since the late 1980s, with more and more malls relocating to old city centers, often as open-air arcades such as Westfield Horton Plaza in San Diego.
Walking through China’s rising cities, one might think that the country’s new middle class is still partial to air-conditioned indoor spaces bedecked in gleaming marble floors and playing host to expensive luxury brands. However, the popularity of such malls is in fact quite difficult to gauge. Most malls make minimal profits and lack customers; only the food courts see crowds. In 2016, several malls closed down in Shanghai, including the recently renovated Jinjiang Shopping Mall. Meanwhile, new malls are still under construction despite little to justify their existence. Already in 2004, former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned of “mall mania,” or the tendency to build projects out of pure speculation rather than in response to consumer demand.
Contemporary Chinese shopping malls can also be seen as an interpretation of the theme park concept. They offer an escape into a different world that is completely controlled and free of dangers or unwelcome surprises. They are sophisticated hives of seductive amusements designed to increase consumption. To distinguish themselves, many malls go all-in on a thematic approach, such as the neoclassic design of Shanghai’s Global Harbor Mall, or K11, a shopping center-cum-art gallery.
In the denser urban context of Chinese cities, however, we find a number of more unique features of shopping malls. In contrast to the West, where malls are usually located in suburbs and only accessible by car, Chinese malls are often situated downtown and near a metro station, with high-density residential complexes only walking distance away. The challenges to traditional urbanity, however, remain the same. In China, too, existing physical and social structures are destroyed, and a form of financial limitation is imposed on large groups by the exclusivity and high prices of products in the malls.
While malls are often seductive, pleasurable environments for shopaholics, they undoubtedly contribute to a breakdown in the social fabric of our cities, and China is no exception to the generalization. Malls are surrogate societies, simulated realities encapsulated in glass, steel, and marble, thrown up at the expense of traditional street life. They may create temporary spaces for urban renewal, but they often come at the cost of community intimacy in the streets, personal identity with one’s environment, and an irreversible deterioration of the city as a whole.
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Copyright: Urban Language