The Lab Shopping Center Is A Palace Of Consumption
The LAB shopping center in Costa Mesa, California proudly calls itself the anti mall, a place where
traditional conceptions of retail do not apply and consumerism is cool once again. Except that this is
not the case. Though they would have you believe you re a hint hipper and more culturally conscious
than the average person for shopping their stores, like all shopping malls, the anti mall s chief agenda
is to garner reliable vendors, pull a crowd, exploit wallets, and cash in. The LAB, like all retail
centers, is a palace of consumption. But, unlike most, the LAB champions a particularly aggressive
brand of pretension in the good name of its marketing. The LAB, which self describes itself as the anti
mall, seeks to distance itself from preconceived ideas of the monolithic shopping mall complete with
capacious, empty architecture, alienating spacial design, and bland, corporate imagery. If normal
shopping malls represent complacent conformity, the anti mall gives hope that capitalism can still be
young, edgy, rebellious, but most importantly, individualistic. The LAB seeks to prove itself as place
for individuals and freethinkers. Viewed from afar, with its brick clad facade, the LAB evokes the
images of an art collective, a downtown music venue, and a smoky subcultural hub all rolled into one.
One thinks of trendy coffee shops, a dense, urban, communal lifestyle, and worker owned bookstores
filled with radical and subversive literature. In reality, The LAB provides
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