WEBVTT - Why Did the Inventor of Shopping Malls Hate Malls? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:09.360 Welcome to Part Time Genius, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:12.959 Guess what, Mango? What's that? 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:13.280 Will? 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:13.600 All right? 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.320 I know you love shopping malls, so I'm sure you've 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.599 noticed these people, but you know the people who like 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:21.160 to exercise by walking back and forth through the mall. 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.120 Sure, mallwalkers. It's like half the country's. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.480 Grandparents at least, and as you mentioned, it's especially popular 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.640 with senior citizens. But they're actually not the only ones 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.280 doing this. There was this twenty fifteen report from the 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.360 CDC that shows that shopping malls are now the second 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.520 most popular place to go for a walk, just behind neighborhoods. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:41.360 How weird is this? 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:45.200 It's weird, But why is the CDC doing reports on mallwalking? 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.760 Well, this isn't a small report either. It's actually fifty 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.879 six pages long and I'm reading every word of it 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.880 is just riveting. But to be fair, taking walks is 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.800 a way to prevent certain diseases, and the CDC is 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.200 actually the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. And I 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.520 bet you forgot that silent p at the end of 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.120 the CDC. There's one funny thing that I learned. It 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.560 actually turns out that most mallwalkers don't actually shop at 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.039 the mall. At most they might buy a coffee at 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.560 the food court or something like that. But according to 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.800 the CDC report, they really just want the camaraderie, you know, 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.440 to spend some time strolling and socializing. 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:22.120 And that actually puts. 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.800 Mallwalkers right in line with the original idea for shopping malls. 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.120 So the architect who designed the first mall in America's 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.160 name is Victor Gruen. He actually envisioned the mall as 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.680 a place to quote find opportunities for social life and 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.880 recreation and a protected pedestrian environment. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.360 Ah, that's interesting. So by that measure, despite not buying anything, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.160 mallwalkers are really the only ones doing malls right. 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:45.600 Yeah. 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.320 I don't know about from the mall manager's perspective, but 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.800 definitely from Gruin's. And he clearly had more in mind 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.040 for shopping malls than what they would ultimately become. But 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.640 what exactly did he envision, why didn't it work out? 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:00.960 And most importantly, is there still a chance that his 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.400 high hopes for shopping malls could still be fulfilled? Those 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:06.080 are just a few of the questions we'll try to 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:30.240 answer today. So let's dive in Hey their podcast listeners, 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.560 Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:34.919 always I'm joined by my good friend mangesh Hot Ticketer 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.520 And on the other side of that soundproof glass, just 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.000 tucking into a feast of food court stables. That's our 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.600 friend and producer Tristan McNeil. I gotta be honest, I'm 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.200 a little jealous of what I'm seeing over here. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.440 I know, Missus Fields. There's a cinnamon bun from Cinnabon, 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.840 a pretzel from Auntie Ann's, and a huge orange Julius 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.040 to wash it all down. Man, it's like a good 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.840 trip to the mall in food form. But from what 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.000 it sounds like, that wasn't exactly Victor grusion of them all. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:02.080 No, I don't think so. 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.480 But to understand what his vision did entail, we should 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.800 first talk about who Grewen was and where he came from. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.680 So he was born in nineteen oh three in Vienna, Austria. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:14.720 He grew up in a middle class Jewish family, fell 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.320 in love with the city's thriving art scene, and this 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.640 was at a pretty young age. So in the nineteen 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.040 twenties he spent many of his evenings performing satirical theater 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.200 at various cafes, and then during the day he studied architecture. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.840 And this was at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:32.280 so it was actually the same school that had rejected 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.040 Adolf Hitler just a few years earlier. Just a little 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:36.240 fun factor thrilling. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:38.440 I feel like too good for Hitler should be on 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:39.520 all their t shirts. 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:40.920 Well. 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.440 Unfortunately, though, the Academy wasn't the only point of overlap 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.480 between Victor Grewen's life and Adolf Hitler. So when Nazi 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:52.320 Germany annexed Austria back in nineteen thirty eight, Grewin knew 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.200 it was time to leave his country behind, and weirdly, 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.600 he left the same week as Sigmund Freud. I keep 0:03:57.640 --> 0:03:59.520 throwing in these little side facts about. 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:00.560 All these people I like him. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.560 Well, leaving was easier said than done, so grew And 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.840 turned to one of his theater buddies for help with 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:07.680 the escape. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:09.280 And it's actually kind of remarkable. 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.360 His friend, dressed up as a Nazi stormtrooper, escorted Gruen 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:15.880 and his wife to the airport and then made sure 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.800 they were allowed to board a plane to Zurich. So 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.080 from there the couple made their way to England, where 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:24.200 they found passage on this ocean liner and traveled over 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.920 to New York City. So Grewin later looked back on 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.600 this journey and he said that he had arrived quote 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.440 with an architect's degree, eight dollars and no English. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:34.000 Pretty tough. 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:35.839 Yeah, I mean, that's an incredible story. So how do 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:36.400 you make it work? 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:36.760 Well? 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.680 He once again turned to the art scene. He joins 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.839 up with some other German immigrants and together they form 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.920 what they called the Refugee Artists Group, where Grewin did 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.640 set design. So the group caught the attention of some 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.840 big names in the music business. This included Al Jolson 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.280 Irving Berlin, and they ended up helping them with their 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.360 songs and all of that help actually paid off. So 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.680 the next summer the group was a to stage an 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.679 original Broadway show and this actually ran for eleven weeks straight, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:07.440 which is just remarkable to think about this guy arriving 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.680 with eight dollars and how much longer later the guy's 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.680 putting on a Broadway show that's running for eleven weeks. 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.520 It's not bad, you know. So things were going well 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.680 for Grewin, but his architecture career had you know, suffered 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.559 since coming to America. Then one afternoon in midtown, Grewen 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.440 bumped into an old friend of his from Vienna, was 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:31.000 this guy named Ludwig Letterer. So Ludwig wanted to open 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.800 this leather goods store on Fifth Avenue, and he asked 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.320 grew In to help him design it, and so grew 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.039 In agreed, and what he ultimately came up with with 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:43.000 something of a game changer for American store design. So, 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.800 rather than build the entrance flush, you know, with the 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.799 street like all the other shops in the area, Grewen 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:53.520 actually made this recess like arcade style entryway with the 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.440 tall glass cases on either side to sort of draw 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.960 in the customers. So once they came inside, these guests 0:05:59.920 --> 0:06:03.799 were just dazzled by these faux marble floors, a green 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.560 glass ceiling, a slew of bright spotlights that sort of 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:11.360 reflected these display cases, and you know, the result was 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.160 a store that felt decidedly modern and unlike anything else 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.440 on Fifth Avenue or really American retail in general. So 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:21.720 it's kind of hard to imagine now, but customers and 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.160 critics ate up this new design, and as a result 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.080 of this, Gruin was swamped with job offers. I mean 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.440 he was going to these upscale design stores all around 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:33.719 the city and beyond getting these offers. 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.479 So obviously designing these high end boutiques and then going 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.119 to big, boxy shopping malls seems like quite a leap, 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.159 and not exactly an upward one. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:44.920 Maybe so, But keep in mind that grew And was 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.600 commissioned to design the country's first indoor shopping mall in 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.880 nineteen fifty two and it opened in nineteen fifty six. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.440 So prior to that, malls as we know them really 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.080 didn't exist, so there wasn't any stigma that we might 0:06:58.160 --> 0:06:59.560 associate with them today. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.640 So tell me about the revolutionary part about what Grewing 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.000 came up with. Like, what was the shopping scene like 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:06.520 in America pre mall? 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.080 Well, it was, you know, mainly mail order catalogs and 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.000 department stores for the most part. Outdoor shopping centers started 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.640 to catch on in the nineteen twenties, but they were 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.200 basically just strip malls as we think of them now, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.120 like a bunch of different stores stuck together and just 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.240 happened to share a parking lot. So Grewin's big idea 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.239 was to put all of these stores and walkways under 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.280 one roof, and then you'd have the addition of central 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:34.040 air and heating to make this complex sustainable year round. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.640 And that last part was especially important given the location 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.480 of Gruin's first mall. This was the Southdale Shopping Center 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:45.560 and Edina, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.120 Where the winters are obviously frigid. 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:49.480 Exactly, I don't think people would want to be walking 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.960 around in those parking lots in the cold of winter, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.520 and so the project grew and signed on for was 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.720 meant to address the residents demand for a temperate place 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:00.440 to be able to shop, and one where they wouldn't 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.440 have to brave the cold if they wanted to visit 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.680 a different store after they'd gone to the first one. 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.000 Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So what about 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.440 this bigger idea he had of them all being kind 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:10.720 of the social hub. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:13.000 Well, a lot of that was just in how he 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.160 arranged the interior. So, just as an example, most shopping 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.720 centers of the era were on a single level. So 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.840 you know, you think about the number of stores in Southdale, 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.800 it was actually meant to house seventy two stores, plus 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.480 these two big anchored apartment stores so making your way 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:32.920 from one end to the other would have felt, you know, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.319 like forever just to get there. So instead Grewin opted 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.720 for this two story design. They were linked by escalators, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.000 of course, and now we're all envisioning, you know, kind 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.800 of the modern shopping center. So not only did this 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.240 breakup that monotony and make for a much easier trip 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.080 back to the car, but it also ensured that people 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:55.920 would circulate better, have more opportunities to socialize. But probably 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.280 the most prominent example of his people first design is 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:00.040 what he put. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:01.320 In the middle of it. 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.240 It was kind of an indoor garden court, I guess 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.280 they called it, complete with a skylight, a goldfish pond, 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:12.200 towering live trees, balconies, hanging plants, like all of this 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.240 other stuff, including a bustling cafe. There was even a 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.520 twenty one foot tall cage filled with brightly colored exotic birds. 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.000 And so it was basically Gruin's ode to the European 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.680 piazzas that he had grown up with in Vienna, and 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.040 he wanted to bring some of that old world European 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.040 charm to the American shopping scene, which he kind of 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:36.280 saw is characterized by urban sprawl. And Tacki design. So 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.600 you fast forward a few years later, we're in nineteen 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.120 sixty at this point, and Gruen wrote a book in 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.079 which he outlined his hope and belief that the malls 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.439 could really be more like a town square and Greek 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.559 Agoras of the past, which. 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.559 Is not exactly what we think of malls today. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.959 Right, definitely not so. When Southdale opened in October of 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.400 nineteen fifty six, it was met with this glowing praise 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:02.200 from shoppers as well as jerm from every publication from 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.400 Newsweek to the New York Times to Women's Wear Daily. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.559 In fact, my favorite review though, comes from Time, which 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:14.040 harolded Gruin's mall as quote the pleasure dome with parking. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.800 You know, ally, it's just it's such a great quote. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.560 But with all that said, there was at least one 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:24.080 person who absolutely detested the Southdale Shopping Mall, and that 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.320 was none other than the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. So, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.120 a month after the mall opened, and you know, it 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.880 had gotten all this national press, right made the pilgrimage 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.880 to Minnesota to see it for himself and he was 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.720 not impressed at all. So after his visit, Right penned 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.160 this scathing article for the Star Tribune, writing quote, what 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.400 is this a railroad station or a bus station? You've 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.679 got a garden court that has all the evils of 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.000 the village street and none of its charm. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.160 I love that. The way he really criticized it was 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:58.640 by calling it a railroad station. 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:00.480 He really really burned with that. 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.640 So I'm guessing even in the minorities, since you know, 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.160 every mall seems to have cred most of his design 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.400 from Gruin's, I mean, somebody must have liked these, right, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:10.840 Oh absolutely. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.040 I mean the design was such a success that it 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.760 became really the de facto blueprint for indoor malls throughout 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.400 the rest of the twentieth century. And Gruin embraced all 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.280 the love at first, and for about a decade after 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.480 the Southdale Mall opened, he gave speeches, he wrote books 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.040 about his creation, and really kind of pondered what he 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.680 hoped it would do for American society. But sadly though, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.920 Gruin's view of his work soured in the nineteen sixties 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.000 and in the seventies as more malls began to dominate 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:40.760 the landscape. 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:41.920 I mean they popped up. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.319 Everywhere, and worst of all these copycat malls were built 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.280 with tweaked designs aimed at maximizing profit rather than, you know, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.600 more fostering that sense of community. So he even started 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.520 to see malls that he designed himself in a new light. 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.280 So when he visited some later in life, he wrote 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.840 of the quote severe emotion shock he'd experience, and the 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.840 ugliness and discomfort of the land wasting parking lot that 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.120 sprang up around these. So it definitely changed the way 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.359 he thought about them, and it was a bit disillusioned, 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.600 and he decided to move home to Vienna. But when 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.400 he got there, he was actually heartbroken to discover that 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.080 the new shopping mall had been built just south of 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.320 the old Vienna and that it was driving independent shops 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.000 out of business. And as Malcolm Gladwell put it in 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.000 a piece for The New Yorker, quote Victor Gruin invented 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.079 the shopping mall in order to make America more like Vienna. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.400 He ended up making Vienna more like America. 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.040 Oh that's awful, But you know, I'm a little confused. 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.320 It sounds like Grewin really hated those giant mall parking lots. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.440 So were those something that was added later and not 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:46.960 a part of his original design. 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:48.640 Oh yeah, that's actually pretty right. 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:51.600 I mean, Gruen's mall designs included a much more modest 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.360 parking lot than the endless stretches of asphalt that we 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.360 were used to associating with malls today. And in fact, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:00.880 when Gruin first drew the plans for Southdale, he placed 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.280 it in the center of this four hundred and sixty 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.880 three acre plot, and to fill all that surrounding space, 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.080 he drew up designs for apartment buildings and schools and 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.280 a park and actually even a man made lake. But 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.600 unfortunately none of that ever came to pass, and instead 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.800 the space was used to make this massive parking lot. 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:22.760 And of course future malls followed suit, and very few 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:27.160 of them ever adapted Gruin's multi use approach to these developments. 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:28.439 That is a shame. 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:28.920 You know. 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:30.720 The whole story kind of reminds me of what happened 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.400 with the inventor of the TV file of Farnsworth. You know, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.480 he was another guy who saw his invention grow up 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.080 in a way he wasn't expecting and grew to kind 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:40.200 of hate it over time. 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:41.600 Yeah, it is weird. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.280 To kind of resent the thing. That's held up as 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.760 the biggest achievement of your life. Right for both these Yeah, and. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.480 In Gruen's case, he actually took his distaste even further 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.960 than Farnsworth by completely disowning his creation. So two years 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.120 before his death, which was in nineteen eighty, Grewin gave 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.439 a speech in London and he washed his hands of 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.200 malls entirely. Here's what he told the crowd. I'm often 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.640 called the father of the shopping mall. I would like 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.520 to take this opportunity to disclaim paternity once and for all. 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.400 I refuse to pay alimony to those bastard developments. They 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:15.920 destroyed our city. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.560 Okay, well, and now that we've unspooled the long and 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.720 sad history behind the birth of shopping malls, what do 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:23.760 you say we step inside of one and take a 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:25.880 closer look at some of the behind the scenes tricks 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.520 that developers use to keep the customer shopping. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:30.440 Sounds good, but before we get to that, let's take 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:45.520 a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.760 we're talking about all the sort of devious design tricks 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.320 that shopping malls use to empty our wallets. But to 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.200 be clear, none of the stuff we're about to talk 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.200 about came from Victor Gruin. As you can probably guess 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.560 by now, he was fundamentally opposed to any design aimed 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.200 at manipulating customers into spending more money. I think he 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.680 would have felt like he was betraying that sense of 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.440 community that he was hoping to instill in these malls. 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.960 Yeah, but there's another dark layer to the story because 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.960 despite his principal approach to design, Gruon still wound up 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.080 having a shady mall tactic named after him. So you 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.480 know how sometimes you get disoriented in a mall or 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.320 a big store, like you're just walking through this giant 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.720 maze and you kind of lose track of where you 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:28.520 are in the building or how long you've been there. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:33.200 That's known as Gruin transfer, and Gruon would have hated 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.320 the name, but the effect is a real thing, and 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.680 stores actually put a lot of effort and thought into 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.880 how to best trigger this reaction in their customers. So 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.720 Victor Gruen might have wanted malls that were easy to navigate, 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.640 but future designers learned that confused shoppers actually spend more money, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.400 and that's why so many malls have these maze like 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.680 layouts with difficult to find exits, and while you're wandering around, 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.960 other carefully designed, coordinated features kind of do their part 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.760 to keep you feeling up, eat and engage. You can 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.120 think about things like musac that's relaxing and played through 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.760 the pipe speakers, or eye catching entrance displays. And the 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.240 more time you spend in this mall days, the more 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:13.560 likely you are to make impulse buys. Right, Like, an 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.080 article on New Scientists describes it as being quote confused 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.200 into a state of unplanned consumption. 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.560 I call this the Ikea effect, I think, and all 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.400 this makes sense. I get why they called it after Gruin, 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:28.880 but you know, because he helped build these malls, but 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.560 actually helped me out with that last part, the word transfer. 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.600 Yeah, so what's actually being transferred is the desire to 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.640 have a specific item. So you go to the mall 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.520 to buy a sweater, and it's only a sweater that 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.520 you're looking for, But if the designers play their cards right, 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:44.720 you'll be so dazzled by the time you get to 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.480 the store that your desire for a sweater will already 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.560 have been transferred to a bunch of different items that 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:50.640 you never planned on buying. 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:53.320 Oh okay, that makes sense, But I mean, I'm still curious. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.880 If Gruin didn't come up with the different sales tricks 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.120 that we find in malls now, then who is responsible 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.480 for that? Like it was just mall architects who followed 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:02.920 him or what I mean. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.000 That's where some of the ideas came from and new 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.320 methods were added over the years. Certainly, but a lot 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.240 of the common features in malls actually originated with one 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:16.119 of Gruen's contemporaries, this fellow storefront designer. His name was A. 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:18.679 Alfred Tobman, and he goes on to be a huge 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.760 mall mogul. In the late nineteen fifties, Todman followed Gruen's 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.760 lead by building his own indoor shopping mall in California, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.439 and over the next fifty years or so, he just 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.000 kept on building. So he actually passes away in twenty 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.080 fifteen at the age of ninety one, but his company 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.680 is still going strong, with twenty four malls spread across 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:41.160 eleven different states plus Puerto Rico's, South Korea and China, 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.800 and each of them incorporate special designs, all developed by 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:45.760 Tobman over the years. 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.879 All right, son, can you give me some examples of 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:49.119 what these designs are. 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.360 Yeah, I mean this is going to sound a little hyperbolic, 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.680 which I guess it kind of is. But a lot 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.880 of Todman's innovations were sort of like perversions of what 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.440 Gruon had designed. So, you know, we talked about grew 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.600 and wanting this two level mall. It was so that 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.800 people could circulate easier and bump into more people. But 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.159 Topman kind of took that trick and moved the escalators 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.800 to the ends of the buildings, so you wouldn't meet 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:14.399 up in the center, but rather you'd have to make 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.719 the full loop around the mall and buy more as 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.040 a result. Got it, and Tobman's malls also applied the 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.840 circulation theory to the exteriors. He was actually the first 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.200 to put a circular road around the mall and add 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.840 a bunch of extra entrances so that shoppers could easily 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:28.879 get to any part of the building. 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.320 That's interesting, And that bit about the moving of the escalators, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.159 I mean, it's such a good example of how a 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.360 simple tweak can change the focus from you know, customer 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.119 comfort to something that really more benefits the sellers. And 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:43.199 I'm curious, did you find any other cases like that. 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:43.520 Yeah. 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.320 So another good example is what Tobman did with the lighting. 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.359 So he kept all the skylights from Gruin's design, but 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.800 he made them recessed so the sunlight would never directly 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.960 affect the storefronts. And he also added these tiny lights 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.159 around the skylights so that when the sun started to 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.080 go down, customers wouldn't take the shift in lighting as 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:05.119 this queue that it was time to leave. And speaking 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.720 of visibility, Tomman insisted on using transparent handrails in his 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:10.840 mall so that you could always see the stores around you, 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:14.120 regardless of what level you were at. I mean, apparently 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.480 it was he was trying to battle something called threshold resistance, 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.800 which I guess refers to both the physical and psychological 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.600 barriers that might prevent a customer from entering a store. 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.160 Like they could block your view and keep you from 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:26.960 seeing a store on the upper level that you might 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:28.520 otherwise go inside. 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:30.280 I guess, yeah, that's part of it. 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:32.440 Well, I mean, speaking of psychology, we were talking about 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.360 Muzac earlier, and I have to mention this weird fact 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.320 I came across this week. So, according to a twenty 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.120 eleven report from Stanford, all the malls in America put 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.440