Figure 10. A number of shopping malls located in the North of Tehran
Grandiose shopping malls are extravagantly decorated with heavy ornamentations and expensive materials that represent a type of design that belongs to the wealthy. Extravagancy of the spatial arrangements in these malls also appears in the extreme use of artificial lighting and reflective surfaces. Large shop windows that display expensive objects give a message of exclusivity and importance of owning such items as a sign of greatness. Sprawl of grandiose shopping malls in this region creates an urban network for consumption that activates the flow of consumers from the whole city towards north.
Image has become a tool for imposing abundance in and by grandiose shopping malls; produced by smooth and shiny surfaces, reflecting artificial lights and images of people; creating compositions of people and commodities both on the inside and outside. Existence of many inverted urban spaces within the City context creates homogeny in flow of consumption in social spaces. Urban growth towards the north of Tehran has given priorities to this area of the city in terms of status; and sprawl of grandiose shopping malls are functionalizing capitalism in the north of Tehran, which consequently grows in the whole city, giving a new socio- spatial representation of the present Tehran (Figure 10).