Architecture for consumption and nostalgia in the post-industrial city. Four project strategies of the ParqueAstur shopping center as an architectural prototype of hyperreality

Abstract

After the industrial decline from the 1970s, many cities have experienced an economic shift, and made them transform their main activity to the service sector. This brought along new urban developments, and architectural venues, in order to respond to the growing boom in consumption but making the architectural project the main instrument for generating emblematic scenes with which to seduce and provoke nostalgia in the user. In this way, the true orchestration strategies of the public movement are camouflaged as a result of a meticulous study of human behavior. This article aims to study this phenomenon through the particular case of the ParqueAstur shopping mall in Asturias, Spain. This building of anonymous architecture was an experiment in commercial environmental design, where the evocation through the traditional architecture of its towns and cities transports the viewer to a time of childhood, while causing a feeling of nostalgia in an audience that is not only made up of children, but also of adults looking for memories of the past.