Consuming Architecture: a Semantic Analysis of Space Consumption in Urban Shopping Malls

Our cities are what and where we consume. In essence, the city is in fact nothing more than a space for consumption in which we apparently express ourselves as citizens of a consumer society. Consumption lies at the ideological core of the contemporary city and, as such, consumption spaces lie at the very heart of what it means to be a citizen of the society in which we live. As cities have become evermore outward-looking, as they have sought to establish their role on the world stage, they have simultaneously been compelled to look within themselves. The topographic identity of the city is in a constant battle with the parameters that consumer society has laid down for it.
Spaces for consumption are worthy of particular attention insofar as they traverse notions of public space and the public sphere and as such offer a new kind of public realm, but one over which the public appear to have less control. Furthermore, shopping malls and large commercial centers demand their suitable inter-disciplinary researches, because of their complicated behavioral and formal natures. These places are defining different meanings in relation with their roles in everyday life of postmodern society people. So, semantic studies with emphasis on consumption of space seems necessary.
This article, based on literature review and a logical reasoning method intends to access an initial theoretical framework for analyzing consumption of shopping mall spaces from the window of semantics based on Rapaport’s method for study of meaning in built environment. Result of the paper shows that while these placesand their designers (as elite specialists) do their utmost to create a high-quality space and produce connotative meanings in the minds of the audience before they enter and use the space, but after experiencing space by the audience and consuming it in their everyday lives, what remains is not the original associational meanings, but generally perceptual meanings based on post-modern, collapsing, and collage images. Although these spaces, apparently, differentiate between two categories of consumers, it appears that the bond between the rich and the poor in the shopping centers, and the presence of different classes, will undermine the semantic system produced by capitalist models. The presence of the “poor” and “cultural minorities” in the places of rich people led to the dismantling of unique styles that are provided through the commodities, architecture, and the geographical location of shopping malls.