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).