As I walked through Copley Place and the Prudential Center, I was struck by how the visual experience of the mall changed, both in terms of types of stores and in terms of aesthetics. Copley Place seemed to be mostly high-end fashion retailers, and there was little natural light. The floor added to the sense of luxury, being made of marble and brick, although the ceiling offered a somewhat disorienting contrast, with bare lightbulbs and metal pipes that would normally be hidden exposed. There were a few benches, but very few people were using them; most people seemed to be on their way to somewhere else. Prudential Center, meanwhile, had an abundance of natural light because the ceilings were made of glass. There were also many more plants benches in the main arteries, and more people sitting down. Going from this mall to Newbury Street was interesting, because there were a lot of similarities, but some important differences. Newbury had similar types of stores, although perhaps more restaurants and coffee shops, and it was also similar to a private mall in that similar types of stores were grouped together (restaurants on its western side and clothing stores to the east). However, the public nature of the street made the experience walking through it much different from that of walking through a mall. I passed several beggars on the street, while there weren’t any in the mall. This is probably a function of the visible police presence in the mall (I didn’t see any police officers on Newbury) as well as the accessible nature of Newbury’s entrances and exits, since they were public streets, rather than doors. This also resulted in a lot of people on the street that weren’t necessarily shopping but simply passing through.
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.
Looking at Google Map shows me that I have a basic understanding of the layout of Harvard Yard, but my map does not accurately portray Harvard Square and the Quad. I have included almost all of the buildings in Harvard Yard, and they are in the correct location in relation to one another. I did not place Robinson, Sever, and Emerson in the right spots in the Yard, so my map has a lot of empty space where they should be located. But, the sizes of the freshman dorms and the libraries are pretty accurate on my map. Outside of the Yard, I did not construct Harvard Square correctly, but I did include the streets that border the Yard. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where all the houses are in relation to one another, so I ended up estimating. On the other side of the Yard, the only buildings I knew how to sketch were the Science Center and Memorial Hall. I did not know how close the Law School is to the Science Center, but I knew it is behind it. I suppose that the two maps are so different because I only knew how to construct a map of the places I visit on a regular basis – the Yard, especially my dorm and the surrounding dorms, and the Science Center and Annenberg. I do not go to the Quad often, so I did not know how to map out the building configuration. Similarly, I have not been to the Law School many times, so it was tough for me to pinpoint its exact location. This suggests that we only use a few parts of the city on a regular basis, and those are the places that we come to relate to. We only know how to sketch a map of the places that we visit often and have the opportunity to observe.
My experience of mapping Harvard Square from memory was a frustrating one. It is one thing to know where two buildings are in relation to one another; it is quite another to know where those two buildings are in relation to a network of streets, landmarks, and thirty-odd other buildings. However, my map ended up being reasonably accurate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I mapped the area of the Square that is my “home turf” (namely, Quincy House and its surroundings) most accurately, and my map gets less specific and less accurate radiating outward from there. While sketching, I chose to differentiate between the places I knew for certain and those whose locations I was less sure of by drawing the former as angular shapes and the latter as formless blobs. I initially just hoped this would be symbolic of my uncertainty surrounding certain sites, but I realized that it is actually deeply reflective of the way I think about space, and the mental navigation system I use in real life. For instance, I do not know exactly where Dunster House is, nor even quite what it looks like, but I know that if I keep walking east along the river for a while, I will run into it fairly soon. Similarly, in my head, Northwest Labs are somewhere nebulously north and east of Annenberg and the Science Center. This level of specificity in my knowledge of location, although low, is perfectly sufficient to allow me to navigate the Square. The map in my head contains more blobs than rectangles, but it gets the job done.
Both Copley Mall and Newbury Street may be large commercial shopping centers open to the public, but that is where their similarities end. Copley Mall is a mazelike network of hallways and escalators. For the most part, it is dark and close; visitors are closed in on both sides by stores and the occasional restaurant. There are few windows, immersing the visitor in the shopping experience. Although the mall is dotted with occasional open spaces featuring skylights, potted plants, and benches, the space is, by and large, designed for movement through and up. I tried to convey that emphasis through my sketch, focusing on escalators and stairs and the angular, dynamic lines that dominate the space. Newbury Street, on the other hand, is a mall in open air. Visiting right after having spent time in the mall with its antiseptic, mildly claustrophobic feel, I was struck by how natural the area felt by comparison. Of course, the space still manipulates its visitors to move through it in specific ways (namely, up and down the main street), but its being outside was, to me, the most noticeable feature of the area. For this reason, I decided to make one of the trees along the street the centerpiece of my sketch, with the shops that line the street appearing only indistinctly in the background. The other main feature of the sketch is the line of the street bisecting the page, which dictates the motion of the people and cars passing through.
This assignment was very interesting in that it allowed me to assess my ability to concretely depict my mental representation of my surroundings. I began this exercise by visualizing my everyday route across campus from my dorm near the Charles River, through Harvard Square, and across Harvard Yard. I decided to create a “heat map” showing the areas that I most often frequent. Interestingly, although I was able to envision the buildings and streets in my mind nearly perfectly, I found it incredibly difficult to depict these structures on paper. It was particularly difficult to represent the shape and relative size of buildings, and I found that I was only able to sketch the relative orientation of structures by mentally navigating through the streets. After comparing my sketch to a real map, I was surprised by the number of retail and residential structures between the Charles River and Harvard Yard; as a student, I tend to think of the Square as a an academic campus rather than a diverse cityscape. The areas surrounding the science buildings and my own dorm (shown in red) were some of the most accurately depicted parts of my map, in both size and orientation, as much of my daily life is centered in these places. However, large regions of the Square such as side streets and humanities-based buildings (shown in blue) were depicted inaccurately or left off entirely because my interaction with these regions is very limited.
While visiting the Copley Place shopping mall, what initially struck me was the ways in which the physical design of the mall affected my experience of the space. Several aspects of the materials and design of the storefronts make the interior of the mall seem like an outdoor space, much like a commercial street. The floors of Copley Place are composed of several different types of marble tiles and bricks laid out in irregular patterns that frame the winding hallways of the mall, giving the illusion of a street system outlined by sidewalks. The shops have unique storefronts composed of vastly different materials and articulating with the walls of the mall at different heights and angles. This gives the effect of many separate buildings, rather than a unified shopping center. The large windows in the ceilings and at each of the entrances flood the space with natural light, and the large fountain with surrounding greenery at the center of the mall further emphasize the outdoor, nature-like component of the space. In contrast to the inhomogeneous shops within Copley Place, the commercial area of Newbury Street is visually and spatially unified in many aspects. The red brick buildings lining nearly the entirety of the street are similar in coloring and style, and rows of regularly spaced trees and street lamps make the street seem insulated from the surrounding urban grid. Newbury Street is situated between a residential district and a metropolitan business area, and the tops of the skyscrapers nearby are visible from street level. The street is bounded on one end by parking lots and public transit stops, which also contribute to the isolated nature of this commercialized outdoor space. While the buildings lining the street appear to be superficially homogenous and unified, the oversized windows and protruding store fronts, as well as the exterior signs and split- level entrances, clearly distinguish the commercial areas from the residential and noncommercial areas. These rare noncommercial areas are largely defined by gates, withdrawn entrances, and small gardens.
In sketching my map of Harvard, I realized that the features of Cambridge that I can see clearly in my mind’s eye vary depending on the location. For instance, I am very familiar with the subtle curve along Garden Street because I walk up and down the street nearly every day, yet I am not familiar with the buildings and houses along Garden Street. Interestingly, I am familiar with the placement of buildings in Harvard Yard, but less so with the buildings’ orientation to the rest of campus. Since I seldom frequent the River Houses by foot, I am unfamiliar with the many streets that separate Harvard Square from the Charles River. After looking at an official university map, I began to recall many of the shops that I had forgotten about along, for instance, Mount Auburn Street. Nevertheless, I struggled to remember how it all fit together. The sinuous roads throughout Cambridge are disorienting. Overall, my map depicts a truncated version of Cambridge. I wonder if my depiction of Harvard’s campus and Cambridge, more generally, suggests that I perceive the area as a resource (instead of as a rich landscape). That is to say, I feel connected to the places I walk to, but not necessarily to the paths that I take to get there.
Comparing my map to Google maps, my map is somewhat more accurate than I initially expected. The buildings I inhabit and use more frequently I was able to more accurately represent. Buildings such as Leverett House, the Lampoon castle, the Carpenter Center, and Sever Hall, I placed fairly accurately. Because I was certain about the locations of those buildings, I was able to do well in regards to the buildings surrounding them as well. My strategy when creating the map became to plot the buildings I was certain of and then radiate out from there. Consequently, the area from the main Harvard yard to the south of it to the river is fairly accurate on my map. However, in other areas of the square, my map is less accurate. In the main square, where the shops and restaurants are, I was only able to make guesses regarding the locations of shops I frequent, the rest were left blank. More generally, my map has a more precise grid than reality. In my version, I assumed a strict north/south, east/west alignment for streets and buildings. In reality, the streets of Harvard square are more angled and radiate in different directions.