Metropolitics

Christmas Markets and Department-Store Window Displays: Examples of Retailtainment

Nathalie Lemarchand & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-12-18T05:50:00Z

The function and fate of high-street shops are the subject of discussion and debate within retail firms. Where should physical stores be retained? What should these stores look like? And what can customers expect to find there? Retail is both an economic sector and a social activity: it involves not just purchasing, selling or exchanging goods or services, but also frequenting particular places and establishing social relations. Trade is therefore about more than just mercantile exchanges,

- Essays / retail, Christmas, retailtainment, local development, retail areas, department stores

The new spaces of consumption

Andrea Mubi Brighenti — 2012-05-30T04:55:00Z

Recent retail spaces are giving a new shape to our everyday environment. Kärrholm proposes new concepts to better understand these changes and how they affect our practices, for example by syncing our lives with the "rhythm of shopping." Brief introduction to the discipline of "architectural territorology."
Retail spaces in Western cities have changed dramatically during the last half-century, both quantitatively and qualitatively, shaping new relations with the rest of the city space, and

- Reviews / architecture, consumption, urban planning, retail, retail areas

The Ladies Kingdom and Its Many Uses. A shopping mall in Riyadh for women only

Saba A. Le Renard & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-03-30T05:30:00Z

The frenetic development of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia is unveiling new and unexpected urban realms, including a shopping mall for women only: the following is a look at a public space liberated from the constraints of social control – and consecrated to consumption.
Inside the shopping mall of the Kingdom Centre (Al Mamlaka), a modern tower built in 2001 and overlooking the new “urban glamor zone” (Saskia Sassen 1996) of downtown Riyadh, there is a whole floor reserved for women called the

- From the Field / consumption, public space, gender, Saudi Arabia, retail, retail areas, shopping mall