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| Shopping
Malls, Groceries & Department Stores |
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Lee
Gardens Shopping Center,
2201 North Pershing Drive, Arlington, Virginia ca. 1940. Originally
planned by Mihran Mesrobian,
final design by Allen J. Dickey. Read compelling support letters and
see great photographs of this currently endangered historic structure. |
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Pleasant
Family Shopping: A
nostalgic look back at supermarkets and discount stores of the past.
A blog brought to you by Dave, started in July 2007.
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Hecht's
Department Store. Hecht's
was a local department store chain (MD, DC) that was bought by the
May Company in 1959 and has since expanded to numerous states. This
Hecht's is in Marlow Heights Shopping Center, Prince Georges County,
MD, photograph submitted by Steve Winner. Is there an historic Hecht's
in your neighborhood? |
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Friendship
Shopping Center, 3306-36, 3400-30 Wisconsin Avenue N.W., Washington,
D.C., 1952-53, Garfield Kass, developer, David Baker, architect. "A
Sight to See--A Pleasure to Shop!" according to an ad for Giant
Food. See our special "Friendship" page featuring links,
photos, and landmark designation under D.C. Law 2-144. "The Friendship
Shopping Center is one of the two largest of its kind erected in Washington,
a city that was a national leader in the development of the type in
the 1930s and 1940s. The complex is among the first in the city and
region where a supermarket and a large variety store served as the
anchor tenants. The complex is also significant as an example of avant-garde
modernism in a popular vein from the postwar era--embodying forms
of expression that exemplified the pursuit of newness by a generation
whose notions of modernity were deeply affected by the technical and
logistical innovations of World War II." |
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Demolished,
April 2004! Apache Plaza,
Saint Anthony Village, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1961, Willard Torsen,
architect. The second modern enclosed
shopping center to be built in Minnesota. One
of the main points of architectural interest is the hyperbolic paraboloid
concrete shell roof of the central garden court.
Unfortunately, a long string of bad luck has reached a critical point.
Plans now call for the site to be cleared by the end of 2003. A New
Urbanist village is scheduled to take its place, with some of the
most powerful local developers already on board for the project. Read
the full illustrated essay submitted by member Angela DuPaul. |
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Edgewood
Plaza, Palo Alto, California, 1956-57, by A. Quincy Jones for Joseph
Eichler. Edgewood Plaza
shopping center in Palo Alto, Calif., a 1950's complex deemed eligible
for the state's register of historic buildings, may be in danger
of demolition. The neighborhood shopping center, constructed by
renowned homebuilder Joseph Eichler, is one of the "most innovative,
best-designed" shopping centers in the state, according to Alan
Hess, architectural critic of the San Jose Mercury News.
Edgewood was
designed for Eichler by A. Quincy Jones, one of California's most
distinguished architects. The center is made up of several one-story
buildings tied together by wide walkways. There is a larger supermarket
building, now occupied by an Abertson's. The center is built in
the same spare post-and-beam style as the surrounding Eichler houses,
and the center and houses share such signature architectural elements
as narrow vertical wood siding, large areas of glazing held by narrow
wood mullions and wide roof eaves with over-scaled, exposed rafters.
More
information on our Edgewood Plaza page...
Sign
the petition to
show your support for Edgewood's Preservation. |
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ENDANGERED!
Just
recently locally designated as a contributing building to the Lafayette
Park/Mies van der Rohe Historic District in Detroit, MI, the Lafayette
Park Shopping Center is threatened with demolition. The owner,
Habitat (Dan Levin) of Chicago, wants to demolish the 1963 Miesian-Modern
style shopping center and replace it with condominiums. The community
wants to save the shopping center because of its historical significance
as an integral component of the first urban renewal project in Michigan
and one of the first in the nation, the Mies-Hilberseimer planned
Lafayette Park. The owner has evicted all tenants, who will be out
by May 31. He will be submitting a permit application for demolition
to the Historic District Commission in the near future, while at the
same time reviewing redevelopment options. Please
contact the City of Detroit Historic District Commission at 65 Cadillac
Square, 13th Floor, Detroit, MI 48226 to express support for retaining
the existing shopping center. |
| Links:
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Shopping
Mall History. This page is intended as a starting point
for research into shopping mall history, primarily in the United
States. By American Studies at Eastern Connecticut State University,
Shopping
Mall and Shopping Center Studies
Mall-aise.
By Herman Krieger
Deadmalls.com.
An excellent site with a mall "dictionary," site locater,
and redevelopment solutions. Composed by two die-hard fans of shopping
mall history.
Did
You Bring Bottles? grocertia.net "Did You Bring Bottles"
is a site on the subject of supermarket history and architecture,
roughly covering the period from the 1920s to the 1970s. It is not
a site about current supermarket issues and locations, except in
historical perspective, and it is not connected with nor owned by
any supermarket chain, past or present." By David Gwynn.
Evolution
of the Shopping Center. From Garden City to Automobile
Center to Suburban Center to Festival Marketplace
to Entertainment Center. By Steve Schoenherr at the University
of San Diego.
International
Council of Shopping Centers. Founded in 1957, the International
Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is the global trade association
of the shopping center industry. The principle aims of ICSC are
to advance the development of the shopping center industry and to
establish the individual shopping center as a major institution
in the community.
Pleasant
Family Shopping: A
nostalgic look back at supermarkets and discount stores of the past.
A blog brought to you by Dave, started in July 2007. |
| References: |
Gruen,
Victor, Shopping Towns USA, ca. 1950s. A vintage template for creating
the earliest shopping malls.
Longstreth,
Richard, City Center to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile,
and Retailing in Los Angeles, 1920-1950, Cambridge: MIT Press,
1997.
Longstreth,
Richard, "Silver Spring: Georgia Avenue, Colesville Road, and
the Creation of an Alternative 'Downtown' for Metropolitan Washington,"
in Zeynep Celik, et al., eds., Streets: Critical Perspectives
on Public Space, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994,
247-258
Olivarez, Jennifer
Komar and Enrique Olivarez, Jr. "Southdale Center: Forty Years of
Shopping History," Architecture Minnesota (the magazine of
AIA Minnesota), Vol. 23, No. 1, January/February 1997, p. 30-31,
51.
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| Archives: |
Endangered!
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Woolworth
Building in Richmond to be demolished in next six months. "Two-and-a-half
years of negotiations have finally secured the purchase of the Woolworth’s
building at Fifth and Broad streets — as well as $200,000 for its
demolition. . . No one has made a plea to save the building, Bates
says — not even those who have owned the land for the past 50-plus
years. 'The only thing I heard was, ‘Get rid of it as soon as you
can.’" Link
to article in Style Weekly. [January 2003] |
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