Rick Caruso aims to reinvent a cultural icon -- the mall.
"At 45, Caruso is dashing, fabulously rich, politically connected and determined to reinvent one of the country's most ubiquitous cultural icons-the mall...
His vision of his so-called "lifestyle center" is becoming increasingly popular among developers, who are building faux street-scene-type malls all over the country...With the help of Hollywood set designers and a team of architects, the developer has mastered the art of making things deliberately fake. His malls are facsimiles of city life, seeking to capture the well-moneyed baby boomers' gauzy memories of their youth.
. His critics complain that his projects are as hollow as the facades on a Hollywood set, that he replicates the past while discarding the grittiness that gives old buildings their soul."
Thanks to Rosemarie Ibanez
Read the full story: Alternate reality
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Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
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