Introduction
“One of Century City’s greatest attractions to those living and working here is that it is a safe and secure precinct.” (Century City Website, 2018).
Post-apartheid public spaces are no longer regulated by regime, but rather by market forces catering for the consumption and recreational needs and desires of middle-class, white Capetonians (Holzschuh, 2009). While Lewis Mumford sees the perfect urban form as one in which “organic forces” collide in the realisation of a perfect life, Century City’s development and design has been anything but organic (Mumford, 1961). This report will examine how aesthetics and regulations come together in Century City – and particularly Canal Walk, the third largest shopping mall in Africa – to present included urbanites with one vision of the perfect life.
Aesthetics and Urban Imaginaries
What time is Century City? ‘Time’ thus conceptualised can be understood in two ways; as reminiscent of a romantic bygone era, or as the human sense of pace, rhythm, and course. Century City is something of an anomaly in Cape Town in how it deals with both of these conceptions of time passing and past. This is no more evident than in Canal Walk, Century City’s mall, where shoppers are urged to “shop the world” as a number of worlds collide in the shared consumer space. Here there are nods towards European histories and aesthetics at every turn; with grand marble pillars and domed geometric glass ceiling facades dominating the architectural landscape. Large paintings – presumably of European explorers and nobility, as well as stills from films such as Casablanca – adorn the space between the shop front and the ceiling like frescos (see Figure 1). European classicalism meets modernism in the numerous so-designed food courts, which are connected by wide, bright, white-tiled corridors of retail spaces and juice bars.
Figure 1. Interior photo of Canal Walk Shopping Mall, with French Renaissance themed artwork and paintings of recognisable European cities visible above the conventional shop fronts.
This blending of architectural designs is matched by the blending of the “native” and the “familiar” in the darker, narrower, side corridors off the larger walkways, where South African crafts, ingredients and clothing are sold in the familiar mall set-up. The design of these pockets appears to be an effort at mimicking markets found outside the mall’s walls, all the while maintaining the sense of safety, formality and cleanliness that Canal Walk provides. This sense is maintained throughout the French baroque arches in the food courts, the visionary modernist residences, and the functional form of the commercial and corporate core.
Figure 2. Wetlands at Century City.
In Century City, we see the natural being somewhat overcome by the cultural – the consumerist, the globalist, the modern – against a background of history and nostalgia. However, Intaka Island provides a “green lung in the heart of Century City” according to the precinct’s website. The 16 hectare wetlands conservation area is rich with indigenous plants and ecological space, open to the public “on a controlled basis”. Further, greenery is visible in select locations within the mall.
The built environment informs the shopper’s sense of time, a biological rhythm that follows a beat apart from that dictated by external, official, objective timelines (Lynch, 1972). A landscape is in essence the expression of dynamic interaction of cultural and natural forces in an environment; this dynamic interaction can be clearly seen in Century City, where a blending of architectural styles, cultural nods, and shared spaces create a familiar but exciting recreational experience for those well-off enough to access and enjoy it. Time stands still for shoppers in Canal Walk, while those sentimental of a time past can feel very much at home.
Control and Governance
Despite Century City’s 120-camera fibre-based CCTV system and three-tier law-enforcement system, little in the way of a security presence is visible to shoppers in the mall. Those who wish to educate themselves on the rules and regulations of the precinct can do so very easily through the 53-page-long document produced by the mall; those who do not, need not. The rules cover such diverse topics as irrigation, concealed weaponry, dog-walking, and signage; no part of public life is beyond the control and governance of the City. Such an exhaustive set of rules echoes Sorkin’s writing on the end of public space, and by extension the end of spontaneous, fun or unpredictable behaviour in such spaces (Sorkin, 1992). In Century City one can easily be deviant – but deviance is so clearly planned and governed that “included” and “excluded” become a binary at the edge of tolerance. The distinction between what is acceptable and what is not is hinted at throughout the mall, with signage often suggesting compliant behaviour rather than demanding it. Shoppers are asked to “please use less water” and are “kindly reminded not to smoke”. Through this presentation of regulation, good behaviour is celebrated more so than deviant behaviour being stigmatised and punished.
Figure 3. Rules and regulations for acceptable and deviant behaviour in the Canal Walk Mall in Century City. The lower segment states that: “All persons entering these premises, including the parking, are deemed to consent to their person and property being searched”.
Malls are in many ways the embodiment of capitalistic freedom, however the perception of freedom is likely greater than its reality in Century City (Holzschuh, 2009; Harper, 2002). The one (unarmed) security guard and nonintrusive signage distract shoppers from the panopticon-like nodal system in the mall and behind-the-scenes, round-the-clock security systems. The illusion of freedom is perhaps most striking in the movement of shoppers around the mall; escalators herd crowds upwards and ornamental, uncomfortable benches discourage lingering in the walkways. The illusion that this supposed freedom is equally shared is also shattered with the sight of serving staff eating lunch on the pavement outside; Canal Walk imperfectly awards spaces within the mall.