Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading content…
Loading…
Transcript

Outline:

A landscape within a landscape:

  • An overview of the Dubai Mall
  • The phenomenology of Dubai and the Dubai Mall
  • The Dubai Mall; a landscape within a landscape?
  • The Dubai Mall as a landscape of consumption
  • The Dubai Mall as a landscape of exclusion
  • Summary and Final Points
  • Bibliography

The Mall as a landscape feature of Dubai - mapping:

The internal landscape of the Dubai mall:

These are both schemes to amplify the touristic value of Dubai and its landscape.

  • In addition to the macrocosmic significance that the Mall's size establishes, the magnitude of the building externally warrants it as having an internal landscape, in its own right.
  • This is illustrated by several authors: for example, Pakravan describes the "live flowers and foliage plants in ceramic pots... placed at two sides of the entrance" as an inviting entrance to the internal landscape, as well as other "landscaping elements" such as carpets, soft furnishings, sleek corridors and live plants, all contributing to the creation of landscape throughout the building (2010:66). This is elaborated by the "8.3-metre-high aquarium and underwater zoo" (Wranik, 2009:1) and "a unique indoor ski resort" (Arefi, 2015:241) within the Dubai Mall's several floors. These features all combine to create an isolated and self-contained internal landscape; therefore exemplifying another interpretation of the Mall.

From left:

  • A 3-D tourist map of the city of Dubai, courtesy of the "Dubai @ a Glance" initiative by Easymap.
  • A tourist map courtesy of City Sightseeing Dubai.

From left: the interior corridors of the Dubai Mall (Tridonic, 2015), the entrance to the aquarium and underwater zoo, (Emaar Malls, 2012), and an example of the elaborate interior design within the Mall's landscape (Architecture and Design, 2014).

  • The combination of the features mentioned and illustrated all contribute to the emergence of an internal landscape within the Dubai Mall. As shown, these features result in an extremely aesthetic and grand environment, which again exemplifes the phenomenology of Dubai as a city as discussed previously.
  • However, besides being aesthetically appealing, the design of the Mall (like others) "is designed to persuade the targeted users to move through the retail space and to adopt certain physical and social dispositions conducive to shopping" (Goss, 1993:31-32).
  • This highlights the importance of the internal landscape economically as well as visually, perhaps suggesting why it is so elaborate (given the values of the city as explored).
  • But, as well as the internal design contributing to the many layers of the Dubai Mall, there are many other aspects of landscape which go towards constructing this image. This presentation will explore two of these; firstly, the concept of landscapes of consumption.

The Mall as a landscape feature of Dubai - mapping:

  • The commercial maps of Dubai shown illustrate the Mall as a noticeable feature within the landscape of the city. By doing so, they demonstrate the importance of the Dubai Mall as a part of this landscape.
  • The maps' purpose for use in tourism are key in exemplifying this point - in designing such products, "[s]killed visual designers manipulate the perception, cognition, and communicative intent of visualizations by carefully applying principles... These principles explain how visual techniques can be used to either emphasize important information or de-emphasize irrelevant details" (Agrawala et al., 2011: 60-61).
  • Therefore, only those elements important enough to be representative of the grandeur of the city to the eyes of newcomers are highlighted. Resultantly, the Dubai Mall's presence in the illustrated documents shows it as important to the city.
  • This visual importance that has been accredited to the Mall also links back to the phenomenologies and values mentioned before; the Mall's "enormity" has pushed it into focus as a significant and representative component of Dubai as a whole.

"Dubai Mall, circled by a boulevard that in Emaar's vision should rival with the Champs-Elysees in width, length and prestige... As the progressively dazzled shopper makes his way through the Mall towards the Burj Dubai, the top-ranking boutiques leave the center stage to another urban champion occupying much of the adjacent 30-acres lake - the Dubai Fountain. Designed to replicate, and, needless to say, amplify Las Vegas' Bellagio Fountain, this gigantic water spectacle is supposed to spray an average 22,000 gallons of water at 150 meters in height at any given moment"

(Acuto, 2010:278).

"It's [the Dubai Mall] built in the shadow of the Burj Dubai Tower, the world's tallest building, and overlooks the world's biggest fountain... you get the point. Such scale, wealth, and outrageous excessiveness can be off-putting but there's something rather intoxicating about the idea of a desert megalopolis."

(Wranik, 2009:1)

Bibliography Continued

Bibliography

Goss, J. (1993). The “magic of the mall”: an analysis of form, function, and meaning in the contemporary retail built environment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 83(1), 18-47.

Hamza, S. (2015). Migrant Labor in the Arabian Gulf: A Case Study of Dubai, UAE. Pursuit-The Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Tennessee, 6(1), pp. 81-114.

Kanna, A. (2005). The "State Philosophical" in the "Land without Philosophy": Shopping Malls, Interior Cities, and the Image of Utopia in Dubai. Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 16(2), pp. 59 - 74.

Kirwan, C.G. (2013). Urban Phenomenology: Incorporating Dynamic Frames of Reference in the Design of Urban OS. In Rau, PL.P. (ed.) Cross Cultural Design: Cultural Differences in Everyday Life, pp. 296-302. Berlin: Springer.

Masad, M. (2008). Dubai: What Cosmopolitan City? ISIM Review, 22, pp.10-11.

Pakravan, S. (2010). Uses of the Basic Landscaping Elements in Shopping Malls: Istanbul and Dubai. Cyprus: Eastern Mediterranean University.

Sahr, W-D. (2011). The Urban Staging of Politics: Life Worlds, Aesthetics, and Planning - and an Example from Brazil. In Schmid, H., Sahr, W.D., and Urry, J. (eds.) Cities and Fascination: Beyond the Surplus of Meaning, pp. 107-125. Surrey: Ashgate.

Tridonic. (2015). app_dubai_mall_inside_01_big. Available at: http://www.tridonic.com/com/en/img/applications/app_dubai_mall_inside_01_big.jpg . (Accessed 18/11/2015)

Wranik, M. (2009). Special Report: Big, bigger, biggest. In The Sydney Morning Herald: United Arab Emirates. August 15, pp. 1,4.

Acuto, M. (2010). High-rise Dubai urban entrepreneurialism and the technology of symbolic power. Cities, 27, pp. 272-284.

Agrawala, M., Li, W., and Berthouzoz, F. (2011). Design principles for visual communication. Communications of the ACM, 54(4), pp. 60-69.

Architecture and Design. (2014). Image 1113. Available at: http://www.architecturendesign.net/inside-dubai-mall-the-biggest-shopping-mall-on-the-planet/ . (Accessed 18/11/2015)

Arefi, M. (2015). From wicked problems to elusive planning: exploring Dubai's development conundrum. In Silva, E.A., Healey, P., Harris, N., and Van den Broeck, P. (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Planning Research Methods, pp.235-248. New York: Routledge.

Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London: SAGE.

Buttimer, A. (1976). Grasping the Dynamism of Lifeworld. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 66(2), pp.277-292.

City Sightseeing Dubai. (2015). Dubai_Sightseeing_Map_Large. Available at: https://www.citysightseeing-dubai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Dubai_Sightseeing_Map_Large.jpg . (Accessed 17/11/2015)

Easymap. (2014). 3d-map-dubai. Available at: http://easymap.ae/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/3d-map-dubai.jpg . (Accessed 17/11/2015).

Elesheshtawy, Y. (2008). Navigating the Spectacle: Landscapes of Consumption in Dubai. Architectural Theory Review, 13(2), pp. 164-187.

Emaar Malls. (2012). Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo 1. Available at: http://thedubaimall.com/en/Entertain/DubaiAquarium.aspx . (Accessed: 18/11/2015).

The Dubai Mall as a landscape of consumption:

Overview of the Dubai Mall

  • The examination of the Dubai Mall can also be analysed through the lens of its internal landscape acting as a promoter and outlet of consumption.
  • As previously explored, the aesthetic design of the Mall's interior is effective in attracting commerce from its customers, by drawing them into the experience of shopping. It can be said, then, that the specialization of the internal landscape in order to achieve such a goal results in the Dubai Mall as a "[centre] of irradiation for social aesthetics, and [reproduces] the urban space within diverse consumer subjectivities" (Sahr, 2011:122). This means that the landscape of the Mall has been created to act as a universally pleasing environment through the accentuation of certain aesthetics, in which to maximise business through consumption.
  • However, through several other processes, the Mall goes further than this in order to promote its culture of consumption.
  • As already described, the Dubai Mall is filled with entertainment activities other than shopping - such as the aquarium, and ski slope. By the inclusion of such activities, the customers of the Mall are provided with alternate modes of "life-style marketing" (Elsheshtawy, 2008:171)as well as the obvious conspicuous consumption promoted. As a strategy, he suggests;

"is one that seeks to influence potential buyers. A lifestyle is proposed which, through the sheer power of imagery, is supposed to turn people into willing consumers of luxury goods. In that process malls do not just become outlets for goods but they are also settings that celebrate multi-culturalism, all unified by one singular purpose" Elsheshtawy (2008:171).

  • This represents the strategic production of the Dubai Mall as an arena to maximise sales and consumption within its customers. This is done by not only creating a visual environment in which to aid consumption through specifically guided corridors and the strategic placement of internal landscape features, but also by promoting an elaborate lifestyle that encourages luxury and the obtainment of expensive goods.
  • However, the creation of this environment would not be possible without the work of many people and processes in order to keep the Mall attractive and appealing. This leads on to the final perspective of the Dubai Mall; its hidden and excluding landscapes.
  • Completed in 2008, the Dubai Mall was the largest shopping centre in the world at the time of construction - being hailed as "one of the largest structures ever built".
  • The Mall cost $1.6billion (USD) to build, and has a combined total floor space of 550,000 square metres over four different levels. 1200 retail companies operate custom in the Dubai Mall.
  • The size and success of the mall is illustrated by the fact that in 2011, over 54 million customers visited the complex; making it "the most visited building on the planet". (Anderson, 2012:14)

The sheer size and presence of the Dubai Mall establishes this structure as formidable in the realm of shopping centres - certainly even by international standards. However, the Mall is far more significant than simply the cultural and economic impressiveness that it evokes. Acting not only as an interesting site for phenomenological analysis, the presence of the Dubai Mall warrants it rightly as a notable feature within the city's landscape, as well as its recognition as an independent landscape in itself. Furthermore - and as important to recognise as the Mall's external features - the embodied processes and constructions that exist internally also play a large role in generating the experiences and perceptions created by the Dubai Mall. These factors will all be examined in further detail.

The construction of the Dubai Mall as a landscape of exclusion

  • Much of the previous examination of the landscapes of the Dubai Mall has been focused on their visual significance and interpretation. However, a factor that is vital in creating the visual landscape of the Mall is the often unappreciated work that goes into the building, cleaning and working within it.

  • As described by Masad, the city of Dubai has a reputation of being "a harshly segregated city living off the indentured labour of exploited... workers" (2008:10). Like many of the recent urban developments in the city, the construction and operation of the malls in Dubai - including the Dubai Mall - are no exception to this.
  • For example, behind the elaborate scenes of decadence within the Mall's boulevards, it is apparent that private sector work within the shops is "dominated by South Asian migrant populations" (Hamza, 2015:85) - reflecting the segregation within the city overall.
  • Furthermore, although there are no physical barriers for these members of the population to participate in the environments within such malls, there is lots of economic and social exclusion existent, which means that these members of society are restricted from participating fully in the landscape. This is exemplified by Hamza, listing the economic and social exclusion as resultant in the fact that the only time that you would see a migrant in malls (like the Dubai Mall) would be if they were working there (Hamza, 2015:98, 100-101).
  • The exclusion can be present in many ways; for example, economic exclusion is created through the existence of high prices of products being sold in the mall, rendering many unable to take part in this promoted landscape of consumption, and social exclusion can be present as a result of the aforementioned segregation existent in the city's society leading to judgement of those who aren't fitting of a particular image.
  • This therefore not only places the Dubai Mall as a landscape of hidden labour, but also as one of exclusion. Furthermore, what makes this a significant factor is the fact that these processes are self reinforcing: by advertising wealth and luxury, and having such high prices on goods, as well as the segregation of members of supposedly "lower ranking" class/race (such as migrant workers) to low paying jobs, the landscape of the Mall leaves socially excluded members of society unable to alter and fit their perception to be accepted in this environment of Dubai's society through consumption.

This creates an image of the Dubai Mall that is less impressive - instead as, in fact, oppressive and trapping of a certain section of society. When comparing this image to the grandeur inspired by the size and wealth of the Mall as a feature of the city's landscape as examined previously, it becomes apparent that the various interpretations of a landscape can be vastly different and in some cases, deceiving and disguising of the less appealing truth.

Summary and Final Points

  • To summarise, through the examination and analysis of phenomenology, prominence in landscape, internal landscapes, and the internal processes of consumption and exclusion, this presentation suggests that the Dubai Mall can be seen as a complex and multi-layered landscape.
  • The range of different ways of seeing the Mall as discussed illustrate the variety of interpretations and representations that are possible for a landscape to have. This highlights a source of conflict in the ability to define landscapes by solely one factor - a historical debate in the realm of cultural geography.
  • However, when considering the variety of viewpoints that are possible when examining The Dubai Mall, it can be suggested that there is an underlying theme. This presentation concludes with the proposal that the overarching characteristic of the Mall is that it is an example of a contemporary landscape that was built, and is received, in an era of consumption and growth. This factor is contributory to the existence and exhibition of the factors that have been explored previously, such as its internal and external grandeur, promotion of luxury, and cultures of exclusion. This therefore highlights the need for the consideration of contextual factors when examining landscapes in all regards.

The Phenomenology of Dubai and the Dubai Mall

"Cities are multi-dimensional, complex organisms, operating on different scales and understood from different perspectives" (Kirwan, 2013:296).

  • However, underlying the perspectives behind every city and the development within it is their phenomenology, which can reveal personal feelings evoked by the interpretations of these landscapes.
  • Phenomenology can be defined in general terms as "a philosophical mode of reflection on conscious experience, and an attempt to explain this in terms of meaning and significance" (Buttimer, 1976: 280).
  • In the case of Dubai and the Dubai Mall, the extent of its ever-growing urban development projects - according to Kanna;

"constitute a peculiar phenomenology in which the ideas of hybridity, interiority, and enormity play an important role in the self-imagination of individual inhabitants" (2005:60).

  • In other words, it can be interpreted that the personal experience of the Dubai Mall on an individual level is influential in inspiring feelings of self-improvement, prosperity, and growth within its customers.
  • This produces a cycle of reinforcement regarding the emotions and behaviour attached to the Mall; the feelings of "interiority" and "enormity" evoked by the Mall's setting are reproduced within those experiencing it, resulting in the increased value of consumption in order to achieve greater enormity/ significance through which to improve oneself, which subsequently leads to more commerce within the Mall, more time spent in it, and more reproduction of evoked feelings.
  • This concept can be further expressed through the ideas of Baudrillard, in which he illustrates that the phenomenology of consumption "represents the perfected, 'consummated' stage of evolution which runs from affluence pure and simple" (1998:29). This idea of "affluence" is implied in the already discussed phenomenology of Dubai's expanding urban development, as "hybridity" "interiority" and "enormity" cannot be achieved with no revenue to fund the process; suggesting that the Mall is the perfect symbol for the values of Dubai and its residents.

These aspects of the interpretation of the Dubai Mall are all very important in constructing it as a landscape. Next, its role as a landscape feature as well as this internal landscape will be discussed.

Landscape Presentation: The Dubai Mall

Candidate Number: 118880

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi