ESCHER’S MALL
Shopping malls get bigger and bigger everyday. They usually have multiple floors, several entry & exit points: the act of shopping now requires longer distances to walk and higher grounds to climb. But luckily, we have escalators that are built for the purpose of facilitating our experience of buying. These automated stairs enable us to spend less energy in traveling and more, in money-spending. Moreover, escalators not only serve our “benefits” as fellow potential buyers, but they also contribute to the benefits of the stores that are the very reason of our existence in shopping malls. Closer spaces to escalator ends tend to have much higher rental rates compared to far ends of corridors... Escher’s Mall is a design concept that has been inspired by Maurits Cornelis Escher’s litograph “Relativity” ( 1953 ). This project aims to criticize the architecture of shopping malls that rely on “form follows function” understanding on a 3 dimensional level by compositing Eschers’ paradoxical work, and combining it with a twist of capitalism from an acrophobic perspective.
