Will A New Mall Arise In China?

The renowned shopping mall designer Jon Jerde wants to build spaces which reclaim lost heritage and promote human interaction. "If you take care of the people," he preaches, "everything else follows." His concept of the humanistic mall has been a huge success in Japan, but the first generation of Chinese shoppers empowered by the economic boom want "big shiny boxes." By "delving into a past that many newly affluent Chinese would rather forget," Jerde hopes to extrapolate a future when "they will begin yearning for a humanistic space as strongly as they do for Christian Dior."