Shopping Towns Europe is the first book to explore the introduction and dissemination of the shopping centre in Europe. European shopping centres are often assumed to be no more than carbon copies of their American precursors - however the wide-ranging case studies featured in this book reveal a very different story. Drawing connections between architectural history, political economy and
commerce, together these studies tell us much about the status and role of modernist design, the history of consumption, and the rapidly-changing social, urban, and national contexts of post-war Europe.
The book's eighteen chapters explore case studies spanning the continent on both sides of the Iron Curtain, from Britain and The Netherlands to Sweden and the USSR. The focus is on the three decades following the first introduction of the new typology in 1945, tracing the variety of typological manifestations that occurred in widely different contexts, from Keynesianism to communism to military dictatorship. The book also explores the role of the shopping centre in urban reconstruction, and examines how new shopping centres were designed to elicit
specifically modern behaviour and introduce new conceptions of collectivity into citizens' everyday lives.
This valuable collection shows how civic and commercial agendas converged in the urban planning and architecture of new shopping centers throughout Europe in the decades after World War II. It makes a compelling case that these places helped shape a 'pervasive modernity,' albeit one that could not, in itself, reconcile the values of collective societies with the juggernaut of consumer culture. Joan Ockman, Senior Distinguished Fellow at the University Pennsylvania School of Design and Visiting Professor at Cornell University School of Architecture, USA
Shopping Towns Europe is a tour de force of pan-European research collaboration. It draws together scholarship from all over Europe to overturn the usual story of the American origins of the shopping mall, completely changing our understanding of this new urban building type. Adrian Forty, Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK
The book fills a remarkable gap in the historiography of postwar European architecture Avermaete and Gosseye have done a splendid job in bringing together scholars from all over Europe. A valuable book that enriches our understanding of a crucial period. Hilde Heynen, Professor of Architectural Theory at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. publiarq.com
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