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Recent North American retail architecture is provisional in construction and has a limited life span. Some stores, such as Harvey's, are nothing more than what Robert Venturi refers to as decorated sheds - utilitarian boxes that have no distinct structural form and are distinguishable from one another only by their signage. Others, such as The Beer Store, employ a distinct shape as a form of branding - like subdivision housing, they appear to have been stamped from identical moulds. Curiously, The Home Depot is oddly reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, with its vast expanse of space in front of the building and its long interlocking pathway leading to the front entrance; a shrine to rampant consumerism. The vibrant blue sky colour may hint at consumer optimism, yet the grey buildings and the expanse of empty asphalt foreshadow the impermanence of retail structures and mass consumption in a time of economic uncertainty and environmental awareness. " Seen within this context," writes Robin Metcalfe, "Dobson's ghostly big-box stores glisten like a digital mirage, prescient images of a doomed landscape." ARTICLES and REVIEWS A
Photo A Day: Constructive
Criticism CONTACT
Report: Temporary
Architectures Photopolis
and Nocturne: Where Darkrooms Meet White Nights Nocturne:
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