I haven't done any mall drawings for a while so I went into Tysonia after work to get some grub (mall food) and do some art. I ate and drew in the same place, the food court whose sign you see in this picture. This food court is in the newest part of the vast shopping complex. Finding a good place to draw in a crowded mall is hard to do, and the food court tables serve the purpose well.

Architecturally, the new part of the mall doesn't quite match the older part. There is a lot of stone and hard surfaced material, including the central structure you see in the picture, which is made of blocks of what looks like highly polished granite. The geometry is harder and more angular, and the colors harsher. The skylight vault is built with dark metal archways and leaded windows. Some of the light is provided by hanging glass cylinders shaped rather like elongated bottles or perhaps artillery shells.

The scene I drew reminded me not of a playful profit-making place of buying and selling, but of one of Piranesi's famous Imaginary Prisons architectural fantasies. The grim stone, the massive piers, the archways, and the suspended catwalks complete with metal balconies had been transposed to the early twentieth century commercial world. In this unwitting imaginary prison, the weekday consumers wandered about, clad in shorts and soft T-shirts and flip flop sandals, as if they had just come in from the beach. Also, because of the hard reflectivity of the surfaces, the mall was very noisy. A screaming baby would fill the space with echoes; the rock and hip hop soundtrack made sure that the decibel level stayed high.

I'm not trying to condemn anything in a supercilious way. I'm a consumer, too. I enjoy the colored lights and windows full of goods. I like people-watching. I like eating greasy mall food. Malls and bazaars have always been noisy and full of action. It's just that because I know and love Piranesi's work, I saw something in the structure of the mall that showed me an unexpected architectural shadow.

Posted at 3:25 am | link