In the sixties an average of at least opened three new shopping centers daily In the United States. In 1975, shopping centers represented a third of all retail sales in the United States. The 80s were the golden age of shopping centers, that offered cinemas and game rooms, and hosted beauty and show contests. And the 90s gave us the commercial megacenter, full of aquariums, roller and zip lines. But in the mid -1980s, the space of the shopping centers was oversaturated. The owners had trusted retailers such as Jcpenney, Nordstrom, Macy's and Sears – known in the sector as an anchor stores – to sign long -term lease contracts of spaces of various levels that attract a wide section of the buyer public.
With several shopping centers by citythere were simply not enough anchor stores for everyone, which made it very difficult for them older shopping centers compete with the new ones to fill the vacancies and sign lease contracts. (The financial collapse also did not help). In 2007, no A single new shopping center throughout the United States for the first time since the shopping centers were invented in 1956. In 2008, Newsweek had declared obsolete the covered shopping center.
It is true that shopping centers They continue to exist, but with them there are many who have closed and continue standing. Called «dead shopping centers», these gigantic buildings are too expensive to repair or knock them down. So they stay, deteriorate and wait. They wait for someone to arrive and record them. I invite you to look for the videos that I prescribe myself for my self -diagnosis of «Melancholy of shopping centers». A handful of adventurous creators invite us to transfer with them to tour the centers dead commercials of the world In various phases of decline.
There is a channel called The Proper People that could offer the most cinematographic and best grabida images of abandoned spaces that can be found on the Internet. The two boys who direct it travel around the world and document a wide variety of abandoned architecture, from an aquatic park in China to a Soviet military base full of murals in Russia. The slow and quiet rhythm of his videos seems almost meditative to me. In fact, they are so relaxing that on more than one occasion they have helped me to reconcile the dream on especially restless nights. Your playlist of abandoned shopping centers It has eight video tours, most of them lasting.
Another great playlist is the “Dead Mall” series of the YouTube channel This is dan bell. The «Neon Dreams» episode is one of my favorites. In it a night walk is documented by a Very eighties shopping center in which, inexplicably, electricity still works. Neon lights and wall to wall mirrors abound. A dark and empty payless is strangely full of cut tree branches. The whole tour is strange and beautiful and an inspiration of degree A for a set designer or art director.