Photo: partie traumatic
While far from the first attraction I’d visit in any city, they do have their place.
I’ll just say it. I hate shopping malls. They’re bland and sterile and full of scary looking teenagers. But I grudgingly accept that not everyone shares my point of view, and fair enough. Lots of people love shopping and shopping malls, and I will admit when I’m impressed by the architecture. Plus, I do enjoy the air conditioning when it’s 38 degrees Celsius outside.
The website GotSaga has published what they think are the world’s most incredible malls. Here are some details on the more interesting of the lot:
Photo: lrargerich
Galerías Pacífico
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Originally built in 1889, Galerías Pacífico was remodeled in 1945 and the famous 12 frescos on the central cupola were done in ‘46.
For history buffs, part of the mall was used as a torture center by the military junta who ruled Argentina from ‘76 to ‘83.
Author Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine:
In 1987, a film crew was shooting in the basement of the Galerias Pacifico, one of Buenos Aires’ plushest downtown malls, and to their horror they stumbled on an abandoned torture center.
It turned out that during the dictatorship, the First Army Corp hid some of its disappeared in the bowels of the mall; the dungeon walls still bore the desperate markings made by its long-dead prisoners: names, dates, pleas for help.
Photo: flashfonic
Toronto Eaton Centre
Location: Toronto, Canada
Timothy Eaton started it all by setting up a dry goods shop on the original site. This eventually became the Eaton’s brand that swept across Canada and changed the way people shopped. The company went bankrupt in 1999, but the mall retains the name.
I was shocked to read that the Toronto Eaton Centre is the top tourist draw in Toronto, pulling in about one million people per week.
That’s almost 100 people entering those doors per minute. What does this say about the city and/or the tourists? I don’t know myself, but it might be worth asking.
Interesting tidbit: a gaggle of fibreglass geese — a sculpture by artist Michael Snow called Flight Stop — is one of the main attractions in the mall and was the center of a controversy when the mall decided to dress them up in red ribbon for Christmas.
They didn’t bother to ask the artist, and predictably he was pissed. Eventually, a court ordered the ribbons removed.
Photo: Nick Mathew
Villagio Mall
Location: Doha, Qatar
I was intrigued by the picture of a “faux” Venice in the Villagio Mall, but the article didn’t have much info.
Neither did Wikipedia. So I found this first-hand account at Travelpod:
…it’s like the Truman show. The mall is a model of Venice, complete with a canal and gondolas and a ceiling designed to look like the sky.
Above every store are mock balconies as if you are really in a city…If you follow the canal through the mall you arrive at…you guessed it…an Ice Rink!
Photo: Leigh Shulman
Special Mention
This mall wasn’t on the list, but I feel compelled to include it. Matador Life editor Leigh Shulman passed this to me when she heard I was going to write about malls.
Allbrook Mall
Location: Panama City, Panama
Here is what Leigh had to say about the mall:
We spent a day there while waiting for a bus. It’s got everything from a merry go round, movie theatre, kids play space etc etc.
But what struck me the most is the store mannequins that had the biggest breasts of anything I’ve ever seen in my life.
I’m speechless.
COMMUNITY CONNECTION
At Matador, we try not to leave anyone out, including shoppers. Veil Shopping in Cairo has exemplary tips for, well, veil shopping in Cairo. Tom Gates’ hilarious piece Bangkok Binge Eating 101 profiles a slightly different type of shopping, but shopping nonetheless.
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OMG, those store mannequins. Effing hilarious. I’ve never seen anything like that. I totally want to see the mall with an ice-rink.
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From someone who lives by a city with one of the world’s largest malls, West Edmonton Mall, they definitely are a tourist attraction. In a way I can see why, because a mall is a ’safe’ destination, and many (like West Ed) have attractions like a pool or mini golf, etc that’s good for families.
Personally for me a mall is a mall. And when it comes to West Ed I only go if I have to buy something from a store there that can’t be found anywhere else close to me, Right now it’s Christmas season, so it and all other malls in the city are nucking futs. I refuse to go to West Ed until at least after Valentine’s day, and only during the day when kids are in school.
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That mannequin is freaking hilarious.
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Don’t like malls much myself, but my kids adore them. Agree with Eva about people-watching. Especially in countries where few people are outdoors, like the USA or the UAE, malls are good for just that. Emirati women, some totally covered, some hardly at all, groups of young men in long white dishdashas, sunglasses on top of their headscarves – all gathering at Costa Coffee. Fascinating.
Dubai must be the mall capital of the world. Not only do they have the world’s largest (they claim) including a skating rink, they also have Mall of the Emirates with indoor ski slopes! It feels strange to say a shopping mall is gorgeous, but some of the Dubai malls really are.
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You know, I never considered a shopping mall a “real” or “authentic” place to travel, but they can be really revealing. The Portuguese are mad about their shopping malls, and when everything else is closed down at 10pm on a Sunday night in Porto or Lisbon, the shopping mall food courts are bumping. Definitely a locals scene.
Speaking of which, visiting a shopping mall made it on this Perrin Post list of ways to avoid tourist traps and hang with locals: http://perrinpost.truth.travel/2009/11/wendy-perrins-jetsetter-list.html
So unglamorous and unexotic, but I guess pretty authentic. The Toronto geese are pretty killer too.
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Ha ha! I am always a little mad at myself when I’m in a mall, but sometimes it’s just the thing to remind me why I left in the first place. Like the poll.
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I like them for people-watching and air conditioning/heat!
Also, one point about the Eaton Centre and their massive crowds–technically, I (and a lot of other people) go twice a day as part of my commute…there are two subway stations inside.
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I question the assertion that the Toronto Eaton Centre is the top tourist attraction in the city. I bet a heck of a lot of those millions visiting are local people or people who work in the mall.
The top “tourist” attractions would be places like Royal Ontario Museum, the CN Tower, Toronto Zoo, etc.↵ -
I sincerely hope you’re right…to think that a shopping mall would be the top tourist destination in any city…*shudder*
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