In every city there is a place which seemingly magically attracts tourists as well as locals. Places like Times Square in New York, the square in front of the Centre Pompidou in Paris or Unter den Linden Boulevard in Berlin.

Places where social life happens, where people conduct their business, can linger without pressure, exchange ideas or simply pass the time. Places replete with history, architecturally interesting or where nature is particularly beautiful. Places which have a social, cultural or commercial meaning, or maybe even all three. American sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls such places “third places“. Oldenburg is referring to one of Sigmund Freud‘s theses, namely that the modern person only needs two places to be happy, a workplace and the home. However, Oldenburg contends that every person occasionally needs a “third place“ as an escape which offers them social and cultural interaction beyond work and family . Hallmarks of “third places“ are that they are inexpensive or even free, that food and drink are available, that they are inviting, comfortable and easily accessible and that they are frequented by people who come regularly as well as the occasional passer-by. Not only can special places of interest serve as a “third place“, any public place where a person can relax or feel part of a community qualifies.

This is actually not a pioneering discovery. In fact, there have always been places throughout history where people met, did their business or discussed the news, be it the “agora“ in ancient Greece or the market in the Middle Ages. Places that brought together social, cultural and economic needs. However, since the Industrial Revolution, such places have been disappearing. Big city blocks often lack comfortable cafes or neighbourhood bars. An influx of cars and more and more traffic inhibits people from walking down the street and many places are often so built up that they have no welcoming character whatsoever. In the 20th century, public places have been successively made anonymous and dissocialised.

The American architect Victor Gruen already recognised this situation some 80 years ago. A Jewish immigrant who left Vienna for America, Gruen missed the warmth and friendliness of a city steeped in history. His answer to the missing “third place“ was to invent the shopping center as a “crystallising point of community life in the suburbs“. The concept was meant to make shopping easier for housewives living far outside the city; but also to create a microcosm that would simulate public life. Thus, the first shopping centers had libraries, kindergartens and club rooms to counteract the suburbs‘ isolation. In later designs, Gruen even envisioned entire cities grouped around a shopping mall. It was a concept that was met with unforeseen success. After all, shopping centers epitomise the typical ideal values of suburban lifestyle, namely order, cleanliness and safety. Additionally, they became decentralised bunkers and evacuations areas during the Cold War when fear was high that there might be enemy atomic attacks on big cities.

The fear of an atomic war is fortunately not as acute today but yearning for a “third place“ is still strong. For this reason many people have disappeared into a virtual world, especially young people. “Generation 2.0“ chats, twitters, skypes and can easily slip into the roll of an artificial avatar. A development which according to experts has already peaked. Futurologist Matthias Horx notes an increasing digital overdose in Trend Report 2009 because “virtual worlds can only conditionally replace the real world“. “I‘m getting bored of facebook“, is the new song of the new internet objectors. According to Horx‘s estimates, millions of internet users in Germany have already significantly reduced their internet use and this will continue to rise. After all, people are recognising that the internet takes up too much time and reduces personal contact in the real world.

A longing for physical presence is the counter pole to globalisation and worldwide telecommunications says media analyst and philosopher Norbert Bolz.

“The Media revolution demands a human compensation: the urban environment through architectural cult places: large public squares, football stadiums, parks, the protection of these little paradises.“ Places where one can find human contact are more in demand today than ever.

A development that one also sees happening in the cities. The decades of fleeing to the countryside have stopped and the new trend is to return to the city. Friedrichshain instead of Friedrichsfelde, Eimsbüttel rather than Poppenbüttel, Schwabing and not Starnberg, so goes the new motto. Horst W. Opaschowki from the Stiftung für Zukunftsfragen (Foundation for Future Studies) also notes a renaissance in city centres. “The desire for urban living is on the increase; without cities you can no longer create a country.“ And thus in the last ten years major efforts were made to create a quality of life in city centres everywhere. In newly created parks, in pedestrian zones, in coffee shops, city dwellers look to sate their desire for more social contact and urban quality of life. Even shopping centers, now no longer built in the middle of a field but rather since the 80s increasingly integrated into existing public spaces, have today become an important element of the urban city environment. The shoppingcenter‘s visitors naturally want to accomplish their errands and shopping. To this end, each shopping center primarily contains fashion and lifestyle stores, inexpensive grocers, drug store chains and home electronics, hairdressers, cosmetic studios, shoe repair, cleaners, pharmacies, doctors, bakeries, restaurants and of course enough parking spaces.

Yet today‘s shopping center visitors do not just come to shop. They are looking for the “third place“. They simply want to spend time and hang around, see and be seen, have some fun and entertainment, and that even after the stores close, on weekends and especially when the weather is bad. In fact, modern consumers are looking for well-being, as trend researchers observe. Besides their search for identity, modern consumers are even driven by a desire to “break out of normality, to re-enchant and eroticise consumption“. Today‘s shopping center operators must accommodate customer wishes to assure that the center is generally accepted as a “third place“. For this reason, the centers are equipped with leisure time facilities such as fitness clubs, ballet schools, indoor playgrounds and children‘s entertainment, cinema and discotheques.

The temples of shopping are mutating into multi-optional leisure activity oases, easily accessible via public transportation or car. A center planned for Berlin will even offer a pier for small watercraft.

An architecture in line with these trends helps associate the center‘s image with the the concept of well-being. Sometimes this can be something spectacular such as with the Galeria Baltycka in Gdansk, Poland or more often a center that has been integrated into the existing cityscape such as the Altmarkt-Galerie in Dresden. The interior is of high quality with marble walls and wooden floors, Greek columns and glass cupolas, fountains and tropical plants, leather armchairs and massage chairs.

Moreover, spectacular special events and theme worlds are an added attraction: a fashion show, a circus performance, an ice-skating rink, or a store is transformed into a jungle complete with its own Tarzan who swings from tree to tree. The center becomes a stage on which stories can occasionally be told to attract and entertain visitors.

A look at our neighbours shows us what future developments to expect. There is still great growth potential for restaurant services as Southern Europeans are proving. Food Courts with food from all corners of the globe is one of the main attractions. A shopping center in Madrid entices visitors with a ski hall, open all year long. The Polish now go to the mall after church to take their Sunday walk, especially young people who meet here regularly. In Turkey, an outing to the shopping center is a downright event. It is a meeting point like the market used to be and people meet there to go to the cinema or even to the theatre in Ankara. The Swiss “Westside-Zentrum“ in Bern has also adapted to the demographic change. It boasts a water park with fitness centre, a hotel and even a home for the elderly.

In USA it is commonplace to find shopping malls with zoos, aquariums and gigantic amusement parks. While the first shopping centers sprung up all over the place some 50 years ago, these have recently become the middle point of social life and some even for decades already. Many Americans more or less grow up in the mall, meet there and even get married in the center‘s “Wedding Chapel“. And more and more arrive with their laptops now, sitting wherever there is free wireless internet. The so-called “Kinkos Generation“ , a group of young white-collar workers and selfemployed individuals first discovered public space as work space. Instead of sitting alone at home, they sit in the “third place“ and enjoy an atmosphere which is intimate yet anonymous, inspiring yet conducive to concentration needed for work.

And after work comes play. Already now, people can spend their entire holiday in the “Mall of America“ in Minneapolis. This concept serves as a role model for the planners of the new “Megahubs“ in the Persian Gulf states.

The “Mall of Arabia“, opened in 2009 with almost 2 million square meters of retail space, is set to become the world‘s largest “Urban Entertainment Center“, almost a city in itself, where customers arrive by air and can spend their entire holiday there.

In this way shopping centers are being transformed from “Consume Temples“ into “arenas for the re-enchantment of the world“, something we all long for because, as philosopher Norbert Bolz explains, every trace of magic, aura, charisma and charm has been extinguished from our enlightened daily lives. At the same time, current studies show that worldwide most people identify the wish for an authentic life as one of their greatest needs. With the right mix of enchantment and authenticity, shopping centers will be a real success as a “third place“ along with the café down the street and Unter den Linden Boulevard.