Since their invention in the 1950s, malls have loomed large as temples of commerce, the agora of the suburbs. Yet today, amid the aftershocks of financial crises and a global pandemic, as well as the rise of online retail, the dystopian husk of an abandoned shopping center has become one of the era’s defining images. Alexandra Lange reveals how the design of malls played an integral role in their cultural ascent, and how essential they have been to creating space for community in the suburbs. 

Her book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall chronicles the rise, fall, and ongoing reinvention of the mall, from Kansas City’s own Country Club Plaza to the wave of 1990s teen movies, to American Dream in New Jersey, a mall whose most successful attractions have nothing to do with shopping.