The UKs retail parks were once the future. Now they look like drab relics of the past | Eddie Blake
Channel: Ragy Mohamed Sabry
Date: 2020-10-04

Read full article here: https://readnews.io/u7gsq5



As you cruise round the ring road at 50mph, they slide into view: huge square hulks with their supernaturally bright colours and 6ft lettering.  Underappreciated and rarely discussed, commercial retail parks are a major part of the UKs economic and social life.  But now, amid a combination of long-term trends and the impact of coronavirus, they might be on their way out. To understand why, we must understand why retail parks exist in the first place.  The first was the Kalamazoo Mall in Texas, designed in 1959 by Viennese architect Victor Gruen.  Envisioned as the ideal urban experience, it was intended as a way of capitalising on the popularity of the car.  Gruen included more than shops in his proposals: he wanted medical centres, libraries, even apartments.  The mall spawned so many derivations around the world  with the UK particularly keen  that in 1978 Gruen disavowed his creation, insisting: I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments. But the economy determines urban form more than architectural vision.  Form follows finance, as architecture historian Carol Willis put it  and by looking at market trends, we might be able to predict the future of these places. The same economic thrust that sends skyscrapers up also puts retail boxes on the citys peripheries.  Today, the ubiquitous capitalist form is the retail park and its cousins, the distribution and self-storage sheds.  Theyve proliferated since the UKs first retail park was built in West Bridgford, Nottingham, in 1964.  The British public had never seen anything like it, and it symbolised the eras suburban plenty and car-based freedom.  Now, though, they mean something quite different; something more like the drudgery of bulk-buying and the dread of weekend chores. The reasons for the retail parks demise are structural, but some are contingent and immediate, supercharged by the pandemic.  The obvious deep threat is online: to shop we now follow links,