West Edmonton Mall’s design includes a traditional steel structure, with a clear sun dome stretching throughout the length of the mall. An exception to this standard mall design is the entertainment sector, which is the primary attraction for visitors. Altogether, the mall comprises four phases, each hollow at their center, and all looking downwardly to the floor level, where the fauna are contained; this supports the premise that malls advantageously station the animals in the centre for visitor’s to conveniently divert their attention and gaze to the marine life subjecting the animals to become a form of entertainment- the animals “lose their linguistic connotations and merely become visual” (Castricano 2008, 201), voiceless entities.
WEM, once known as the largest mall in the world, yields semblance to other malls considered as the world’s largest malls, namely the Dubai Mall and Mall of America. These malls also contain wildlife in the centre of the mall, emphasizing the strategy the architectural design. The wildlife are subjugated to each malls’ entertainment region and are the malls most important attraction tactics, reinforcing the capitalistic hegemonic strategy. All three of these malls have the reputation of superior architectural design, as the “largest mall’s ever”, thus sadly overriding the immoral realities of the animals.
"Mall of America" Map
Entertainment bearing resemblance to the environmental world (i.e. wildlife containment) have become disguised market places (Hannigan 1998). WEM is far from minimalist as aforementioned when it comes to its entertainment sector. Marketing psychologists have utilized a qualitative inquiry of in depth interviews to determine informants motivations for shopping. They concluded that hedonic experiences within the mall drive the consumer to impulsively purchase goods and positively influences the amount of time the consumer will wander; shoppers even described their enjoyment of being entertained as more rewarding than the actually acquisition of goods (Arnold and Reynolds 2003). Shopping has become “intensely entertaining and this in turn encourages more shopping” (Hannigan 1998, 96). Consequently, the animals are reduced to be seen or understood as a product themselves. The center of the mall, where most traffic congestion is found, has also been proven to be a focal point in entertainment placement (ShopperTrak 2009). Hence, the strategic placement of animals central to the emporiums and small shops can be thought of as a marketing tactic, leaving shoppers little choice but to divert their gaze towards the captive animals.
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