A really fascinating look into the history and current state/demise of the shopping mall. The first half of this book deals with the inner workings and creation of the mall (location, structure, architecture) while the later half deals with the mall as sociological structure (both in pop culture and in real life).

While a book like this can sound dry, it remained engaging throughout... namely because of Lange's prose:

"The common ground of all ruin porn is waste. A waste of materials, a waste of design, a waste of imagination. I can't admire the lines of a building if I am thinking about how its emptiness brings the city down, block by block, crime by crime, into a vicious cycle of limited economic opportunity. Any travelers in the world of dead malls must ask themselves whether they are prepared to fight to put people back into the gutted buildings, or it they merely intend to pick over the aesthetic bones." ( )

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange is a 2022 Bloomsbury Publishing publication.

Like many people my age, the mall was the place we spent a good chunk of our teenaged lives. I have fond memories of being dropped off at the mall, meeting my friends, hanging out in the food court, blowing my allowance and babysitting money on clothes and records, going to the movies and of course I had the pretzels and the cookies- all within a concealed, air-conditioned environment that felt contained and safe. So… when I saw this book, I snapped it up thinking it would be a fun trip down memory lane and because the title made me chuckle.

For starters, it is important to know that the author of this book is an architect- and a good deal of time is spent on the history of malls and the architecture. This is in the very beginning of the book and some of it is quite interesting- and there are some thumbnail pictures- if you have the digital format- but other some sections could be pretty dry- which even began to concern me because my enthusiasm took a serious dive after the first few chapters.

I stuck with it though, and was rewarded with some very interesting observations about malls, and yes, some of that bittersweet nostalgia I was craving, too.

The mall became such a big part of our lives that phrases were coined- like Mall Rats/Bunnies, for example, and the mall was the backdrop of countless teen angst eighties movies. But this all reached a pinnacle, as malls began to expand to include major entertainment attractions and adding more rules about unattended teens and implementing curfews and time restraints on teens who practically lived at the mall when they were not in school or sleeping.

Later, in the nineties and early aughts, ‘Mallsoft’ music was a thing- which apparently isn’t the music that was played in the mall so much as it was how the mall sounded with the music added to it. (Check this out on YouTube- called 'mallwave' songs)

Eventually, the mall became a cliché, the mammoth buildings once considered innovative in design grew outdated, requiring in some cases, massive remodeling efforts. In other cases, the malls just continued a slow decline, until they eventually closed, and became fodder for ‘ruin porn’. And then came Covid...

What will happen next for malls? As the author states, the United States became oversaturated with malls, internet shopping puts a dent in the brick-and-mortar commerce, and many mall anchor stores have folded.

Some malls are being repurposed, some have concepts designed to draw in more diverse and cultural groups of people. Maybe, if Covid ever stops resurging, people will be so ready to go out and do things together again, that malls may see a renaissance. Unfortunately, though, in the past couple of years, every time a mall is mentioned, it seems to be in connection with a deadly mass shooting- one occurring as I was finishing up this book- though that is my own observation and is not something mentioned in this book.

These days, I'm afraid I find the mall a bit boring, as it appeals to families with younger children, teens and young adults, as it always has, I don't fit into those category any longer. That said, I'm sad to see malls in such decline.

Hopefully, future generations can continue to try more innovative ways to draw people together, and create new memories for themselves and their families…

Overall, as you can tell by how much I wrote about this book, I found much to like about it. I enjoyed the history, the pop culture references, and the Sociology, more than the study of architecture, but I did enjoy looking at some of the older designs.

The material is organized and thought provoking as well as being educational, and the subject is a fascinating one to explore.

3.5 stars ( )

Meet Me by the Fountain, by Alexandra Lange, is both a well-researched look at the rise and fall (and potential future) of malls as well as a bit of a personal love letter to them.

I am a little too old to have had a mall to hang out in, though by my early adulthood they were common enough that they became destinations for purposes other than shopping. So my memories of the heyday of malls tend toward what they represented to an adult rather than what they represented to someone still in school. The fact that they were destinations in and of themselves for both teens and adults speaks, I think, to the design both physically and marketing-wise.

I thought Lange covered the various aspects rather equitably. The physical design, the architecture, of these buildings were every bit as important to their success as the stores that were included and the physical location of the property. So the attention given to design is neither too much nor off topic, it is essential unless one simply wanted a vacuous trip down memory lane. I love such trips but also appreciate educational and informative trips as well. I'm not sure why anyone would have thought this was a coffee table book, it is a researched history book, but just in case someone didn't read the book blurb, this is not a coffee table book, nor is this a big picture book. There are ample photographs to illustrate the points made in the text.

The future of these malls, whether trying to recapture some type of shopping experience or serving a completely different purpose, is intriguing. I know that one place I lived has seen what had been the biggest mall in the area go through several rebirths, from a very large church to, I believe, some kind of recreational complex (think paintball/laser tag and such).

In addition to those who study social history I would also recommend this to those who remember malls fondly and might want to know more about how and why they came to be as well as how and why they have largely faded away.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )