Nickelodeon Universe at the heart of the Mall of America appears at first to be a super futuristic and modern utopia of fun times. But among the roller coasters and lovable wacky cartoon characters we can see the remains of what has come before it, both specifically and theoretically.
Modernism itself was a design element of a mass produced society and culture, it's purpose was a simplicity of design which was not only easier for machine manufacturing but also a cost cutting methodology to make anything using this design less expensive for the masses and thus in theory facilitate a greater egalitarianism as well as lending stability to the required amount of mass consumption necessary in a modern capitalist economy.
Post-modernism was a reaction to what was perceived as the ugliness of crass consumptive modernism. Designers would add just about any additional elements to create a sense of uniqueness and style largely absent from modernist architecture and other consumer products. Neotraditionalism came in late post-modernism but is still by definition a part of post-modernism in that post-modernistic design is defined by adding extra design elements that include historicism and neotraditionalism is but a very specific form of post-modernist historicism.
The history of the Mall of America includes the original center of the mall of Camp Snoopy. An idealized rustic rural reproduction of our American past.
Yet even then the mall itself had historical debris of what had been in place beforehand, there were memorials here and there to the old Metropolitan Stadium, only only know for sports for all sorts of mass entertainment of an earlier time for this specific place, this geography.
But the Metropolitan Stadium is not the only memorial at play here, the new shiny design elements betray the neotraditional design elements that are just beneath and these design choices were not random for they are labor archives for very specific jobs and occupations which used to define work in this same geography, in this same space. These are memorials and tributes largely to the lumber and mining industries.
The vegetation in Camp Snoopy included largely local Minnesota varieties whereas the new Nickelodeon Universe plants are of the shiny and more tropical variety. Also, spread out amongst the various plants of Camp Snoopy were the debris from these forms of labor they were memorializing, what looked like refuse from various lumber and mining sites as you can see in these pictures.
These before and after pictures show what looks like a bit of a drab rural fisherman replaced by a bright and shiny Sponge Bob on a spout.
Again, before and after pictures show a mining ride edifice replaced by a bright and shining new entryway.
Consider for a minute the historical discourse represented here, lumber and mining work is idealized and the danger and work relations of those occupations are largely ignored.
Again, before and after photos of a quasi and problematic rural historicism replaced by a bright and shiny more urban or perhaps suburban neofuturism.
More before and after pictures, it's not that there wasn't plenty of color beforehand as evidenced by this flower display but it was a naturalistic one at Camp Snoopy and a hyper real one today.
These photos I took were during a transition phase, the changeover and redesign of the Mall of America took place as the same time the nation was going through a transition from the more conservative Bush administration to the more liberal Obama administration. This was also at a time that the nation was going through "The Great Recession" and often popularized designs in architecture and other realms mimic the political tones of their times. Obama in this instance would equal the bright and flashy aesthetic of neofuturism and Bush the more subdued rural naturalism of neotraditionalism.
This before and after comparison of the exact same location is particularly telling of the changing political climate of the time, from a dim rural shooting gallery to bright electric bumper cars.
Back to Camp Snoopy at the Mall of America, we see a particularly ironic example of historicism. We see "homemade fudge" which is made to look like it is sold in a small town family run store but the chances that this was actually made in a home are near zero. Another irony is that increasingly under neotraditionalism consumer goods that appeared to have been made far in the past became more and more popular. In this example, dishes that were made to look worn down and perhaps from the 1920's are on sale. In a further irony, the mass consumption of earlier modernism required a throw away society. You can't keep buying things if you don't also throw things away and thus we find ourselves losing a historical sense when it comes to the products of our labor. We want dishes handed down from grandparents, we idealize that sense of stability, tradition, and history yet they were all likely throw away and thus we simply create new ones, new old ones that is. These are artificial in every way, they are mechanically aged and made thanks to modern-day globalization on the other side of the world. It's yet a further irony considering the loss of the American manufacturing base, the very thing being lamented as a source of nostalgia was facilitated by the same cheap manufacturing globally outsourced to create these dishes and other items.
Even the nostalgia presented at the Mall of America has changed through this timeframe, from idealizing the rural 18th century to the urban/suburban 1950s yet both stores have Betty Boop in the entrance.
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