The Mall: where is it going?

Here, at the Indian Bazaars blog, in the initial days, I talked about how I would include in the blog, both the Bazaar and the Mall. Somewhere down the road, I completely forgot about the Mall. There was enough to share about the Bazaar as I explored the marketplace on an ordinary day or on a festival day.

Living in Bangalore, the Mall may be more a part of your daily life than the Bazaar. I did go to the Malls, not every day, but every once in a while. It was sometimes to watch a movie, sometimes to “eat out” and occasionally ‘to shop’. The malls had “Food courts” – the eating places where you could order one dish from one eatery and another from the neighbouring one and sit at these common tables in a cacophonic atmosphere of young people who did the movie, the shopping AND the “eating out” all in one sitting! Or, so it seemed to me.

Today, I come across this interesting article in the architectural journal PLACES and think again about the Mall. In order to understand ‘The Mall- where is it going?’ maybe, we need to look at ‘The Mall – where did it come from? And, therefore, this work from Brian Ulrich is so interesting to know. His book : Is this place great or what? was published recently, a collection of his photographs of consumer culture in the United States, pictures taken over a period of ten years.

The project comprises three series: Retail (2001-06), photographs taken in malls and big box stores across the country; Thrift (2005-08), focusing on the secondary life of consumer goods in thrift shops; and Dark Stores (2008-11). You can read about it here: Is this Place great or what?

There is a slideshow of the photographs at: Not if but when PROJECTS. These are malls in Illinois, New York, Ohio and some in UK. It shows the people, the goods. One could say that there is this monotony, in the way in which the goods are displayed and the way in which the people perceive and absorb what is displayed. Brian has studied this consumerism for a long time and his interpretations are interesting. You can read Brian’s writings on his blog, linked here: Not if but when BLOG

Last month, having spent ten days in Ahmedabad, we went one evening to Satellite road. It was THE place to shop, someone said. It had innumerable malls and the newness of the experience was on offer. But, we walked around that evening, the realisation soon dawning on us that Malls were dying, or at least a few had just died in the city, we did not know what would happen in the days to come. We had entered an EMPTY mall – it was a strange experience. Why were we here?! There was a handloom expo that was occupying a large central space in the mall. That was all there was in there. The rest of the mall was dead. No buyers. People had vacated. Sales were not good. At another part of the city, at Sarkari Virasat road, near Thaltej, I had seen that morning a new, “grand” mall under construction.

Who would occupy? Did it make good busines sense? an interesting read here in The Hindu. As we think about our future cities, we may look to the West for new aspirations but are we firmly grounded on where we come from?

Designing an Indian Mall

The many new malls that are mushrooming around the country have almost identical architectural facades and layouts. This sameness is in stark constrast to the country itself. In the largest and most diverse gathering of people under a single nation-state in the world, one expects diversity, not uniformity. The challenge is to resurrect what is Indian from the history of shopping environments in this land, and to introduce the familiarity of that experience into the modern retail space.

Our understanding of shopping behaviour of customers in a mall environment will also depend on how Indians have shopped until now in a bazaar environment. How can we design an amenable mall that understands the concept of familiarity that the new Indian shop must be based on and also ensures profit for the Indian entrepreneur?

The STREET Concept for an Indian Mall

The concept design for a mall included here proposes a sheltered environment for a series of smaller mall blocks roofed over together. The new design recommends bringing in the vibrancy of an Indian street into a modern Indian shop that has the efficiency of a “Singapore mall” and yet offers creative freedom to the vendors in the way spaces and displays can alter themselves within the informal central spine that connects the more formal spaces.

This blogpost is a part of an article I wrote recently for an architectural journal. For the full article, refer to  'Indian Architect & Builder' Vol 23 (11), July 2010, Business Press Pvt.Ltd., Mumbai

a Mall for home interiors

The Future group's "Hometown" is a mall for home interiors. It is now already in seven cities including Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Calcutta. The Hometown in Bangalore is in Marathahalli on the outer ring road. This is also where @Home and other furniture and interior showrooms are located. This is meant to be a "one-stop shop" for home interior.

The ground floor has several options for living room furniture. The upper floors offer options for bathrooms & kitchens. There is a 'Design & Services' Centre with four architects, four engineers and two managers, a team that offers interior design solutions to its customers.

There are three packages one can opt for. There is the Turn-key option that includes design and implementation for the interior of the entire apartment or house, where the design fee is Rs.35/sq.ft and the design & execution may be charged at Rs.600 to Rs.1200 per sq.ft. There is the Segmental option, which consists of plan alternatives and ideas for the design of a room at Rs.2999. There is the third Customised option, which may include the design of just a wardrobe for a bedroom.

This mall for home solutions also includes a small exhibition on the various aspects of house building from the foundation stage to the finishing stage. There is information made available on a Mobile Concrete Lab to assess the suitability of materials at site and suggestions for mortar, waterproofing and other mixtures that the construction needs.

How is 'Hometown' different from a Kajaria showroom for bathrooms or a Venetia Cucine showroom for kitchens. It does offer both in one location but does not match up to independent showrooms on its customer service. And, in terms of the services it offers in plumbing, electrical and carpentry, how is 'Hometown' different? The Mr.Plumber, Mr.Carpenter and Mr.Tilewala boards within the mall do look attractive. However, all services are offered within the 'design centre' on the second floor and comprise of an interior design solution or a turnkey interior service.

The social networks of building artisans have been quite strong in towns and cities. It is a system that depends on the 'word of mouth' phenomenon. Will the old system and the new one continue to run parallel to each other?

Read about:
Citi Centre: the Mall in Chennai
Miracle Boutique
Things Indian and Mauritian
Forum Mall at Bangalore

Miracle boutique

In India, we have always, always been fascinated with miracles. There was a time when they actually happened, with the tapasya of the Rishis. Later, we lived with the epic tales told at home by our grandmothers and the miracles were almost a part of us. Then, and also before, came the movies, that depicted these tales of hanuman flying in the air, of krishna and arjuna. There were television serials soon after, that brought the miracles to every home, in every town.

When we walk into the Forum mall and see the "Ponds Miracle boutique", it gives us a "good feeling". Then, there are the showrooms that offer all that you need for the gym evenings. Today, lifestyles and malls are about "LOok good, FEel good"

Forum Mall at Bangalore

One walks into Forum mall wanting not so much to "buy" or to even "windowshop" but to find out why everyone in Bangalore recommends 'Forum mall' as THE mall to go to. So, you go in there, and tell yourself, "this must be good, because its the Forum" Quite like when we went into the Louvre in Paris, with little time on hand before the museum closed for the day, we headed straight for the 'Monalisa'. Stood before it and stood before it... and like everybody else does, told ourselves, this is a very good piece of art, because its THE Monalisa, it is Da Vinci's most famous work.

We had been told that Garuda mall was good to visit as well, and that there were many malls in Bangalore, that Bangalore was a "city of malls" . Its always good to first check out the best. So, we enter into the Forum, the backlit floor plans attract attention.

Its the corner spaces in the mall that are designed very well. In one of the corners, is the Cafe Coffee day. Its not so much how the spaces within the coffee shop are, but what the lively corners do for those who stroll in the mall. The coffee shop would pull you in, even if you were not at that moment considering a cup of hot or cold coffee! In the Irani cafes of old-time Bombay, it was this cornerness that was the most remarkable feature. The corners of streets were always taken up by an Irani shop. Its charm did come from its mirrored walls, its marble-top tables and round-seated wooden chairs. The black of the chairs, the mirrors, the bun-maska and the man behind counter were what made the place what it used to be!

Read about:
The Mall: where is it going?
Designing an Indian mall
a Mall for Home Interiors
Spencer's Plaza: the mall in Chennai

no "shop window"

There is no "shop window" anymore. In the old days, there were shop fronts that had mannequins that had to be dressed up every day or at least once a week.

Now, printing technology allows us to have a large screen in vinyl that has life-size pictures of men and women in just the clothes we aspire for. Lighting technology now allows this screen to have a special accent and to highlight that which must attract us, most hurried customers.


In Bombay, in the 80's, Benzer, the super store happened, at Warden road, which was by then, renamed Bhulabhai Desai road. It was the place to go to shop. There were no malls then. Benzer had a "shop window" It also had a small "landscaped" area at the entrance with sculptural blocks clad in granite stone.

There was an outside to the store and an inside. You stepped in to see what was possible, at what price. Today, in the mall, you often see the whole store from the outside. All the T-shirts racks, all the discounts being offered... It is like having a walk-in closet.

Spencer’s Plaza – the old mall in Chennai

Spencer’s Plaza has always been ‘the new within the old’ – a new building within the memory of an old one. Until Citi Centre opened to the public some months ago, Spencer’s Plaza was “The Mall” of Chennai. There is the atrium with the circular arcade in brick, constructed anew on the old design.

In the malls, the parking space is always your first experience. In the old days, you always walked to the bazaar. Today, you can still walk or take the car to the bazaar. Because it is almost a pedestrianised zone i.e. it is flooded to such an extent with pedestrians and hawkers, nobody takes a car in there. You park in the side lanes in and around the main bazaar streets. There is always a small street nearby which becomes a parking lot.

In Georgetown, you are in one street for clothes, in another for electronic goods. Here, at Spencers' the clothes and the electronics are a shop away from each other and the expensive eateries abound. The spaces are clean. You do not jostle in a crowd. The noise levels are different from the bazaar too. You cannot buy your fresh limesoda or your sugarcane juice here. But, there is the “Fruit shop on Greams Road” outlet which sells ‘Pineapple Mint’ for Rs.40 or the Orange Tangerine for Rs.30. Sugarcane juice in the Bazaar is Rs.3 for half glass and Rs.6 for full glass.

At Spencer’s, you come out of the parking basement into the brick-lined circular atrium, take an escalator up to the shops. It’s a centrally air-conditioned mall – the atrium, the passages, the shops. The maintenance costs are high and the goods always priced high. There are large chain stores like West Side and Music World housed here. There is “sweet corn” and “subway sandwiches”.

And as one of the storefront sign says you “Rediscover yourself”. A mall is just different from a bazaar…

Read about:

Citi Centre: the mall in Chennai

Miracle Boutique

Citi Centre - the mall in chennai

It is a shopping centre with an ornate façade on RK Salai, in Chennai. You pay by the hour for parking. The entrance is grand and they sell expensive coffee and snacks in the lobby. The most attractive is the third floor, with its medley of restaurants, from Saravana Bhavan to Gangotree to Subway. You get here from one escalator to the other. You don’t walk a few yards from a bhelpuri kiosk to a 30-year old Saravana Bhavan as elsewhere. You use the escalator to reach the space that has it all, amidst a lot of light.

Evenings at Citi Centre are about good lighting. Eating in a street bazaar is also about an experience in light, but they are rarely floodlit spaces like this one. Here, you are on the stage. In the old bazaars you walk, sometimes as spectator and sometimes as actor. You choose when you want to be what and move in and out of the light.

The great thing about the food floor at Citi Centre and this really is the greatest thing, is that you can dine with your family in four different places but at one table. One person picks up a subway sandwich, another mexican food and the other a mini-tiffin from Saravana’s. You don’t travel miles between these places in the city’s traffic to get this experience.

The next great experience at the Citicentre is its Landmark bookshop. That experience is also possible at Spencer’s Plaza. In a Bazaar at Mylapore or Triplicane or Georgetown, you don’t encounter a Landmark in any case. If you need to go to a bookshop in the city, you go to Landmark or Odyssey’s independent stores. These are great shopping experiences in themselves – the standalone book bazaars. In Bombay, the book lover goes to Strand Book stall – a space smaller than Landmark and Odyssey. Strand is a small space and always a memorable experience. Other shops in the Citi centre seem expensive, but people come to the mall to eat, to spend time and money. So, the shops have some window shoppers and some who are there to buy for real.