Copley Place is definitely catered for the wealthy upper class in its selection of stores. Neiman Marcus, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Tiffany and Co. are only a handful of the many higher-end brand name stores available here. The most interesting thing about Copley is that it builds up with multiple floors rather than outwards, and that it has a more of a cavelike feeling due to its darker lighting and closed atmosphere. It is upholstered with polished marble and a green space which showcases an indoor waterfall, and it is cloistered from the outside with an escalator, separating it from the rest of Boston. Newbury Street is completely opposite, with lots of restaurants and smaller boutiques. Compared to the classy elegance of Copley Place, it has a more town-like feel due to its brick buildings. Seating areas abound in ubiquitous sunken seating areas. The stores are clustered together practically in an unbroken wall that forms the “walls” of Newbury Street, turning the entire street into a mall. Prudential Center is somewhere in between these two. It is an indoor mall that is separated from the outside but open to the sky through a roof made almost completely out of glass. While it shows the kind of isolation that Copley Place presents, it has a more urban feel to it due to its shop selection, a mix of both economical and higher-end stores. It is in itself a social space with an array of seating areas scattered throughout the mall.
This assignment forced me to think critically about the decisions I was making. Unlike our first assignment, where we were tasked with simply sketching a space from memory, this assignment required considerable observation and attention to detail. Moreover, the purpose of this second assignment was to use the two sketches to tell a story or emphasize the contrasts between Copley Place and Newbury Street. After spending time in both locations, I decided that the best way to articulate these differences was by illustrating their vastly different patterns of use. For the purpose of this assignment, I mapped pedestrian density onto a basic floorplan of the two locations. Areas shaded red had high density of pedestrians, while yellow had medium density and green areas were virtually devoid of pedestrians. Copley Place and the Prudential Center are shopping malls of the traditional style. Brimming with boutiques, luxury retail outlets, and restaurants, they are multi-story, and meander in many directions. However, they have few entrances or exits, and the majority of foot traffic appears to come from adjoining office towers. This creates a handful of very densely trafficked choke points, the most noteworthy being the footbridge between malls. Newbury Street, on the other hand, is a very porous environment, with pedestrians entering from side streets, walking the length of the street, or entering from inside its many brownstone buildings. High densities were still observed, mostly clustered around intersections and at popular outdoor cafes and terraces. But pedestrian traffic was overall more dispersed and fluid. I should note (and I meant to include this with my diagrams) that the pedestrian traffic is mapped as I observed at 12pm on Friday, February 26. Visiting these shopping centers at a different time, or perhaps over the weekend, would surely yield different insights.
It dawned on me as I worked on my sketches: A mall is an attempt at the mystical idea of a cobblestone street in Europe with shops on either side, and everyone leisurely enjoying a nice summer day. The attempt is almost too good in a way. Malls like those at Prudential or Copley almost have TOO much natural light, TOO many beautiful trees, a WATERFALL?? But it's easy to see why it's enticing. Newbury Street seems to be the attempt at this, but in an outdoor setting. In some ways, it gets closer to the goal, and in some ways it does not. With street performers, trees that actually obey the current weather, a breeze, runners, and more, Newbury Street feels more like real life. But as a result, especially this time of year, there are no people sitting outside cafes, and few people stop to look at anything like they can in the mall. Everyone is on a mission (until nice weather at least). With a mall we try to have the best of both worlds, just like those who try to have the city and the country together. I certainly prefer Newbury Street, where I get to at least experience the day, instead of an unsettlingly perfect environment.
Ostensibly, both the Prudential Center and Newbury Street are urban spaces that are designed for commerce and public gathering. Despite this, the two have very specific idiosyncrasies and differences, but both still manage to create environments conducive to success of the urban marketplace. Both shopping centers are designed with the pedestrian in mind, but this is incorporated in different ways. In the Pru, the emphasis on the shopper is created through grand hallways with high ceilings and plenty of open space—the walls, ceilings, and floors are cream-colored, and there is plenty of natural light filtering in, giving the illusion of spaciousness. On Newbury Street, the sidewalks are practically as wide as the driving lanes (wider in some places), and there are a number of intersections toward the west end of the street that do not have streetlights, making them more pedestrian-focused. Additionally, the dearth of parking spaces and the draconian regulations make it very difficult for automobile drivers to navigate the area. Additionally, both shopping areas have stores of various characters interspersed with eateries and more quotidian establishments like pharmacies or grocery stores. Once inside the Pru or on Newbury Street, one does not go to just one store—the atmosphere created in both places encourages visitors to make an experience out of the visit and have a shopping afternoon or shopping day. On Newbury Street, there are many glass storefronts that simulate the experience of walking through a mall—visitors can peek in to stores with particularly intriguing window displays (like the sewing machines at Allsaints). The entrances and exits to both locations are very carefully planned. Obviously with the mall, there must be actual entrances; these are designed to let out either at major intersections, at subway stops (e.g. Prudential stop, Back Bay stop), and at the hotels that abut the malls (Westin, Marriott, Sheraton, Mandarin Oriental). Newbury Street has entrances from every cross street, and the corners everywhere are built in such a way that turning onto the street opens up the view for the pedestrian of everything on offer—i.e. the corners are not obscured with tall buildings that block everything else.
Upon visiting both Copley Place/Prudential Center Mall and Newbury Street, I was surprised to find how each attempted to mimic certain characteristics of each other. The Copley Place and Prudential Center Malls are large, enclosed, shopping centers. High glass ceilings, shiny marble floors, and large glass storefronts create a pleasant, bright experience for shoppers and passerbyers. The extensive use of glass in the storefronts, ceilings, entrances, exits, and pedestrian walkways lets natural light illuminate the shopping areas, and glimpses of sky and surrounding streets and buildings are possible. In the center of the mall, a multi-story atrium with a waterfall and benches creates a central seating area. It seems that this shopping complex attempts to mimic a natural, outdoor environment while (obviously) remaining enclosed. It also seems that the shops located on Newbury Street attempted to”replicate the experience of a shopping mall” by using the same floor-to-ceiling glass storefronts, using different elevations as a way to catch the eyes of shoppers (eye-level and basement level shops), as well as marketing luxury products of the same caliber as those in the mall (designer bags, perfumes, watches, etc). Newbury is clearly a commercial area because of the significantly wide sidewalks that accommodate large volumes of foot traffic, as well as the numerous shops that continue adjacently for many blocks. Although some aspects of Newbury Street seem to mimic that of, for example, Copley Place, it is still clearly part of its surrounding urban environment to a greater extent. It is easier to take cross-streets to enter and exit the street, and it is possible to view the Boston skyline, residential buildings, banks, churches, etc that are on all sides of the street. The shopping complex, however, is somewhat isolated and requires the crossing of multiple heavy-traffic roads. The complex is less seamlessly incorporated in the urban fabric - multiple large parking buildings are nearby (maybe the complex is geared towards commuters who rely on their cars for transportation). While it is easy to enter and exit Newbury Street, there are fewer entrances/exits to the shopping center - once you have entered, it is easily navigable. But to actually leave the complex requires more effort than leaving Newbury Street.
I focused on the physical atmosphere more on Newbury Street than in the Prudential/Copley Place Shopping Center. I tended to centralize my ideas on the people passing through the space in the latter. I noticed that even though Newbury Street is essentially a landmark in Boston, it has foreign elements in its atmospheric architectural design. “La Voile” café is representative of the fact that there is a Parisian atmosphere on a Bostonian street and that is what draws consumers and pedestrians. I almost took it as a commentary on how Boston can learn something from the more relaxed, people lingering Parisian café atmosphere. I also noticed that everyone walked with a speedy pace, aiming to a final destination. There weren’t people walking slowly and really enjoying the shops or restaurants from the outside, but aiming to get inside. I found that more people walked on the right side of the street towards Gloucester and away from Dartmouth, than the other way around. I thought this was because although people aimed to sit in shady locations, the sun shone on this side so it was more enjoyable. The Prudential Center’s Boylston Arcade area was very interesting because I found myself focusing less on the structural design than on the way people moved in and out of the space. The only physical structures in the space were the kiosks that sold Boston souvenirs and clothing, but nothing to sit on or admire otherwise. Most people moved towards the Huntington Arcade, the corridor with plenty of plants and greenery, because it offered more opportunities to sit and relax. Many moved towards the Prudential Arcade probably because of the large amount of shops down this corridor. The Boylston Arcade had a large number of people moving towards it, but not necessarily to shop or to sit but to exit the building. These were faster paced than others. I sensed that unless there was a store people could peruse or a place they could perch on, they would continue walking. Lastly, I saw that both on Newbury Street and in the shops, people in groups or pairs tended to walk slower than those alone. Those alone also tended to be using their phone and/or have headphones more than those with others.
Newbury Street and the Prudential Center take different forms as commercial spaces due to the agency afforded in their constructions. The layout of the Prudential Center, being a designed center on a plot of land, could have taken really any form. As such it was designed with commercial interests in mind. There is a single level experience here, with escalators and elevators connected discrete floors. Stores fronts take up most every available visible space, and kiosks litter the walkways. There is an ambivalent sense of disorientation--the many turns of path the walker takes rarely have the experience of being a decided turn. The fungibility of the given franchises lends towards the experience of most any one location (and associated constellation of storefronts) being fungible with another. The consumer is always lost among the seemingly familiar, the layout ceding the best aspects of lostness (more time near stores, more likely to spend) without the worst (sense of alienation, not liking the space, wanting to leave and not wanting to come back). Newbury Street only definitely became a shopping district in the last 50 years, though it of course had storefronts previously. Walking in the contemporary permutation of one of Boston’s oldest streets reveals the ad hoc nature of its storefronts. Irregular, jumbled on top and underneath of street level shops are stairs and doors utilizing every inch of real estate possible. One of Boston’s few areas without curves, the streets are gridded—not in the perfect Cartesian grid but arrange in straight parallels and perpendiculars. One maintains a sense of location to the landmark Public Garden and Charles (which are likewise perpendicular and parallel to Newbury). The irregularity of shops does not lull consumers like those in the Prudential Center. A sense of spatial awareness remains, but the ad hoc arrangement is more pleasing than the sterile one of the Pru. The consumer needs no architecturally designed anesthetic because he is not undergoing an architecturally designed lobotomy.
My journey began, as prescribed, at the entrance of Copley Place Mall on the corner of Dartmouth and Stuart streets. I found the two horse statues at the entrance to the Copley Place to be an interesting symbol. Almost as if they were regal gate keepers, these horses are the ﬁrst indication of something artiﬁcial and curated. The shape of horses are easily recognisable, yet they are made from what looks like scrunched-up sheets of metal. Similarly, the shopping mall itself is made from very different materials than you would ﬁnd in the make-up of a shopping street, yet they are recognisably similar. One inside, visitors are immediately elevated off from the street level by two sets of escalators into the main hall of Copley Place. The stores are all beautiful, expensive and big. There is an indoor garden at the center of the main hall, creating the sense of an oasis within an otherwise artiﬁcal space. Everything is polished and shiny from the ﬂoors to the windows to the sunglasses, shoes and jewels in the store-front windows. The last store at the end of the hall is Tiffany’s Exiting the main hall, vistors are funneled down an escaltor and towards the pedestrian bridge leading into the Prudential Center shopping mall. Signiﬁcantly less elegant, the Prudential Center mall has a collection of stores of a lower calibre. The Prudential Center mall contains more advertising banners and more small stalls in the middle of the walk way, especially with Boston and Harvard/MIT merchandise. Newbury street is amongst the most glamorous streets in Boston. Notwithstanding, there are clear physical differences between the cultivated interior of the Copley Shopping mall, with it’s two levels and marble-tiled ﬂoors, and Newbury street, ﬂat and made of concrete. Starting from the Boston Common end of Newbury street, the ﬁrst stores we encounter are Burberry and Tiffany’s. It’s interesting that Tiffany’s is located at the end/beginning of both Newbury street and Copley place, I wonder if this was intentional. The high calibre of stores continues as you move down the street, however stores begin to be interspersed with cafes and eateries. Past Dartmouth street, there are signiﬁcantly fewer luxury stores. Instead, stores like Forever 21 and Urban outﬁtters become more common. This is similar to the transition between Copley Place and the Prudential Center mall. One of the most signiﬁcant differences between Copley Place/Prudential Center mall and Newbury street is the signage and advertising. Being a privately owned space, the mall is able to sell advertising space on walls, and free standing signs, directing customers towards particular stores which otherwise look fairly simlar from the exterior due to the uniform style of the buildings’ interiors. As a private space, Newbury has little to no advertising and the buildings vary stylistically. There are many more observations to be made, but I elected to represent my experience of the two spaces as a 3D rendered maps accompanied by a perspective drawing of each of the spaces, highlighting the difference in the walking passage and visuals of each space.
For this sketch, I tried to switch up my approach from my last sketch. Instead of doing a view from above, I picked a view from one particular spot and tried to incorporate a more abstract idea of space. I tried to focus on perspective and angle. I thought drawing the small part of the mall was actually a lot easier than the part of Newbury Street. There was more happening on the street and it was harder to focus on the specific aspects on the street because we were outside. I also couldn’t stand in the spot I centered my drawing on because it was right in the middle of an intersection, so I had to do my observing from both sides of the street and then pull it together on paper when I began to draw. At the Prudential Center Mall, it was easier to stop and draw and so it was easier to notice small details, but the drawing of the perspective and all the lines I tried to incorporate definitely stretched my artistic ability.
Despite both being shopping malls, these two spaces are drastically different. The Copley and Prudential center shopping mall is designed for consumerism. The flow of the space effortlessly directs one along a path of retail. It is one long tunnel of retail opportunities, designed in a way to make the space seem more like a neighborhood of shops. This illusion is created by turns in the tunnel, the addition of glass ceilings, brick walls, pedestrian walkways, and food areas all of which break up the monotonous presence of shops. Newbury Street on the other hand actually does seem to be a neighborhood of shops. This is particularly evident in the multiuse nature of the buildings. In fact the retail, despite being almost overwhelming present in advertising and signage, occupies mostly the street level or underground level, while the upper levels appeared to be residential, office, and even school space. As well, significantly more restaurants and food vendors compete with the retail on Newbury Street and give it a very different feel. These restaurants make Newbury Street more than just a destination for shopping. As well the way that Newbury Street fits into the surrounding area gives it much less of a focus on shopping, with the crisscross of cars and pedestrians just passing by on their way to somewhere else in the city. Newbury Street has had to adjust to this and make more of an effort than the shops in the Copley Mall. In fact, Newbury Street has seemingly attempted to emulate a traditional mall like the Copley Mall with its large window displays and intense advertising. Architecturally the buildings themselves protrude into the street, which allows the shops to catch the eye of the consumer. I found the Copley Mall to be exhausting even just to walk through. It was a much more social experience and a much more intense experience with all of the design aspects aiding in the marketing of the stores (the lights, the colors of the floor, the mahogany lined panels) which heightened my senses greatly. In taking a harder look at these malls I really feel that I saw them both in a new light, seeing how both have used design (inside and out) to create a space fit for the American consumer.