Disorientation and Spectacle in Retail Architecture

Disorientation and Spectacle traces the development of new retail and entertainment sites through three examples: Bluewater shopping centre (Kent), Canary Wharf shopping centre, and Selfridges department store. The authors ask if disorientation and spectacle can continue to properly engage with the imagination when fantasy has become part of everyday experience. They speculate if the ever-changing demands of a collective imagination have forced a mutation in the way disorientation and spectacle are considered by designers and architects,and ask if the challenges faced by retail and entertainment corporations might offer new possibilities for the wider cultural sphere of the practices of both art and architecture.