Thesis statement and intro

Thesis title : The Church Mall, The church as a shopping experience, the mall as a holy experience, unholy mass draws holy mass.

The church mall is contrasting and similar. The passage is key. Spiritual and material pilgrims flow through its spaces ever-seeking be it god or the next best thing to buy.

Program: The church is strict and structured through the procession of spaces that service its rituals. The church is dead, un crowded, neglected and private.

 The shopping mall is free, porous and ever-developing drawing in newer methods to attract the mass of crowds. The shopping mall is alive, crowded, ever-changing and communal.

They are opposite, in their flow they unite, pilgrimage is what combines the two together. The holy becomes the unholy and the unholy becomes holy, boundaries are blurred co-existing side to side, feeding off each other. For this, the church is overtaken by the mall acting as a catalyst to bring in the crowds.

Materiality (structuring): In The church mall the structure is big, bold and made permanent by its columns called pin-drops which increases in ornamentation and structuring as it reaches towards the heart of the church, the altar. The church is found within its core, the cross, and it’s extensions the chapels linger in the volume of the mall. The mall is thin and temporary showcasing a gridded framework to house areas for shops. The pin-drops gradation of ornamentation acts as a barrier to define the perimeter of the holy grand church. As they lessen in ornamentation mass they become porous and allow an ease of access to the crowds hence becoming the familiar communal mall.

Experientially (spaces): Because of this contrasting an overlapping approach in programmatic, material and structural similarities create interesting clashes, redefining the meaning of holy and unholy. The programs overlap by reference to time and space allocation which is dictated by the elaboration and or simplicity of the structure.