Kiss Nature Goodbye

This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 2000, Number 10. To order this issue or a subscription, visit the HDM homepage at <http://mitpress.mit.edu/HDM>. © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the publisher Kiss Nature Goodbye Marketing the Great Outdoors, by John Beardsley HATS OFF TO commodity culture. The ture is emblematic of a larger phenom- endless quest for new products has enon. I refer to the growing commodi- spawned another hot-selling hybrid: fication of nature: the increasingly the not-entirely-entertaining, but not- pervasive commercial trend that views really-educational, simulated “natural” and uses nature as a sales gimmick or attraction. At the Mall of America, it’s marketing strategy, often through the called UnderWater World. You pay production of replicas or simulations. $10.95, go down the escalator, and en- Commodification through simulation ter a dark chamber where synthetic is most obvious in the “landscapes” of leaves in autumnal tints rustle as you the theme park and the shopping mall. pass. You’re in a gloomy boreal forest Such places have been widely discussed in the fall, descending a ramp past bub- of late: the malling and theming of the bling brooks and glass-fronted tanks public environment and the prevalence stocked with freshwater fish native to of simulation as a cultural form have the northern woodlands. At the bottom elicited skeptical commentary from, of the ramp, you step onto a moving among others, philosopher Jean Bau- walkway and are transported through a drillard, architectural historian Mar- 300-foot-long transparent tunnel garet Crawford, essayist Joan Didion, carved into a 1.2-million-gallon aquari- novelist and semiologist Umberto Eco, um. All around you are the creatures of design critic Ada Louise Huxtable, and a succession of ecosystems: the Min- landscape designer Alexander Wilson.1 nesota lakes, the Mississippi River, the Readers of cultural criticism are gener- Gulf of Mexico, and a coral reef. You’ll ally familiar with these writers and I “meet sharks, rays, and other exotic won’t rehearse their arguments. Rather creatures face to face.” Sound like fun? I want to put a different spin on the Call 1-888-DIVE-TIME (no kidding) problem, one attuned especially to the for tickets and reservations. landscape. By itself, UnderWater World won’t Specifically, I am interested in how rock the planet. But if not particularly the commercial context is modifying significant, this piece of concocted na- our conceptions of nature—changing HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE 1 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye the cultural meanings and values of the local mall or the downtown bou- few—those under sixteen must be ac- nature. While many observers focus tique? Is this beneficial or harmful? companied by an adult on weekend on the more outrageous examples of Perhaps it is time to abandon at least evenings; everyone under twenty-one malling or theming—the many muta- some of our ideas about nature—Na- must carry government-issued photo tions of Disneyland, Universal City ture with a capital “N,” imagined as identification. Walk in Los Angles, the various met- independent of culture—and to take Yet malls are wildly popular and in- ropolitan simulacra in Las Vegas—I the measure of the new “nature” we creasingly the locus of our leisure ac- want to explore how nature is pack- have been creating. tivities. The Mall of America claims to aged for consumption in more ordi- Why should the commercial land- be the “most visited destination” in nary places: first, in our local malls; scape matter to designers and those the United States, annually attracting and second, in nature-based theme concerned with the designed environ- more than 40 million visitors. On the parks. The phenomena that are chang- ment? Partly because there is much regional scale, Potomac Mills, an out- ing—even distorting—traditional con- room for improvement in this com- let mall in northern Virginia that re- ceptions of nature are not limited to a mercial landscape: such places might ceives 23 million visits a year, is now few flagship sites but rather are per- benefit in interesting ways if the famil- the number-one attraction in that vading our surroundings. Almost every- iar landscape types, the park and the state, outpacing even the Civil War where we look, whether we see it or garden, were expanded to encompass battlefields, Colonial Williamsburg, not, commodity culture is reconstruct- the food court, the parking lot, and and amusement parks like Busch Gar- ing nature. the flood-control sump hole. It also dens and Paramount’s Kings Domin- This is not, however, another re- matters because the commercial land- ion.2 Malls feature entertainment and quiem for lost wilderness. We humans scape is an embodiment of demo- recreation for children and adults, have always modified our landscapes— graphic trends that cannot be ignored. ranging from multiscreen cinemas and blisher sometimes for better, sometimes for Over the past few decades, as suburbia video-game arcades at local malls to worse. Nature shapes culture even as culture inevitably alters nature. Nor is At the Body Shop, “natural essences” are linked to physical, this a lament for some more “authen- emotional, and economic personal fulfillment. The customer tic” version of nature. The membrane here is flattered: the pampering provided by natural oils and separating simulation and reality is far aromas is a reward for worldly success; nature here is under- more porous than we might want to acknowledge. For at least five cen- stood as a source of products that makes you feel good rather turies, since the 15th-century Francis- than as a primary and complex phenomenon for which one can monk Fra Bernadino Caimi bears personal and social responsibility. reproduced the shrines of the Holy Land at Sacro Monte in Varallo, Italy, has become more politically and cul- full-scale enclosed amusement parks for the benefit of pilgrims unable to turally dominant, shopping malls have like Camp Snoopy at the Mall of travel to Jerusalem, replicas of sacred become one of the centers of our cul- America. Almost everywhere, pay-for- places, especially caves and holy ture. Far more than shopping happens play is available in some form: one can mountains, have attracted the devout. there: malls have usurped many public play indoor miniature golf, climb syn- In the United States, simulations have functions; indeed they have challenged thetic rock walls, face down foes in featured prominently in entertainment prevailing ideas of “public space”— games of laser tag and in virtual-reality landscapes: the 1915 Panama-Pacific malls are ersatz town centers, with po- intergalactic battles. Who needs a International Exposition in San Fran- lice stations, registries of motor park—one of those places with grass cisco, to name just one gaudy example, vehicles, satellite educational institu- and trees, playgrounds and benches— included a scenic railroad whose route tions. They have even been venues for when you can while away a Sunday af- featured fabricated elephants, a replica weddings (convenient, no doubt, for ternoon in a safe, sanitized, and of Yellowstone National Park com- those last-minute gifts). But of course, economically segregated simulation of plete with working geysers, and a they are not really civic spaces; these a public space? mock-up Hopi village constructed by privately owned emporia encourage the Santa Fe railroad. But if simula- discreet forms of economic exclusion How exactly is nature constructed in tions are not new, they have, in recent and social regimentation. As entertain- these new commercial places? When decades, become almost ubiquitous, ment and tourist landscapes, they are we shop at stores like the Body Shop and increasingly they are being used open only to those who can pay. As and the Nature Company, we receive for commercial purposes. And this private places, they limit freedoms of whole sets of messages about nature. raises an important question: what speech and assembly. The Mall of At the Body Shop, “natural essences” does it mean when nature is for sale at America, for instance, enforces a cur- are linked to physical, emotional, and of Harvard the President and Fellows © 2001 by College and The MIT Press. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the pu 2 HARVARD DESIGN MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2000 What is Nature Now? Kiss Nature Goodbye economic personal fulfillment. The vals in the corridors of Potomac Mills it’s now the best place to experience customer here is flattered: the pam- show images of forests and waterfalls. our confusion about nature and to be- pering provided by natural oils and And the entrance to Montgomery gin to understand what we ought to do aromas is a reward for worldly success; Mall, also in suburban Washington, about it. nature here is understood as a source features a large mural of the kind of The first Rainforest Café opened at of products that makes you feel good pastoral scene once characteristic of the Mall of America in 1994; today rather than as a primary and complex Maryland. The mural even includes there are twenty-five (and counting) in phenomenon for which one bears per- trompe l’oeil binoculars—a device you the United States and ten overseas. sonal and social responsibility. At the can’t use to gaze on a landscape that’s The brainchild of Steven Schussler, an Nature Company, thousands of goods no longer there. entrepreneur with experience in ad- from stuffed tigers to geodes, from Nature at the mall can be under- vertising and restaurants, the concept bird feeders and wind chimes to field stood as using the idea of “adjacent at- was developed over some seventeen guides and wildlife videos, have the ef- traction,” as this has been described by years.

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