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Why do empty malls feel so creepy?
A mall is a machine designed around a crowd, and when the crowd is missing the machine keeps running anyway.
An empty mall feels creepy, for many people, because everything in it was designed for a crowd, and most of it keeps working without one. The lights stay on, the music plays and the escalators run, all of it set for people who are not there. Your mind reads the room as ready and then finds nobody in it.
What was the building made for?
Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, is usually called the first fully enclosed, climate-controlled mall in the United States. About 75,000 people came to its opening on October 8, 1956. Its architect, Victor Gruen, imagined an indoor town square, but what spread was the commercial part: department stores at the ends, small shops in between, and a long walk past all of them.
The crowd was part of that design from the start. At lunchtime a food court is full of movement: trays, lines, children being called back, a cleaner on a slow loop. Take the people out and the tables, counters and menu boards still say lunch.
Researchers at Cardiff University tested a related idea with virtual rooms that were slightly warped, with features missing or repeated. In the warped public rooms, adding a person made the room feel less strange, as if a crowd explained the oddness away. In ordinary public rooms, a person made no difference, so the study does not show that a normal empty mall is uncanny.
Why does the running machinery make it worse?
A mall at a quarter past seven has been left in a state of readiness. An acoustician who measured several food courts after closing found that sound hung in them for four or five seconds, so a dropped lid or a distant shutter stands out. Retailers use music to nudge how fast people move and how much they buy, and it plays into the empty hall anyway, at a volume chosen for a crowd.
Many American malls open early for walkers, and Mall of America opened at 7 a.m., three hours before its stores. At that hour you know why the shutters are down and that they will go up, so the quiet reads as early. The same concourse with no one sure of its future reads as something else, as the airport after the last flight does.
The lit, ready mall is the most familiar kind in the examples of liminal spaces people share. A mall can also be made to look open after it has closed. Dixie Square in Harvey, Illinois, opened in 1966 and was empty by 1979. That summer the crew of The Blues Brothers rented it, fitted it with new shop windows and merchandise, and drove the Bluesmobile through it.
Questions
Why do empty malls feel creepy?
Probably because a mall is laid out so that crowds move past every shop, and it keeps its lights, music and escalators running when nobody is there. The room still signals that people should be present, and the missing people are what you notice. See what a liminal space is for the wider idea.
What is the difference between a dead mall and an empty one?
A dead mall has lost its shoppers, while an early-morning mall is only waiting for them. The early mall is empty for a reason you can see, because the shutters will go up, and the dead one shows its reason in gates, blank directories and papered windows. Many dying malls sit between the two, still lit and still partly used.
Why are dead malls so popular with photographers?
They combine a building made for crowds with obvious signs of absence, and many keep working in small ways, with music still playing or a few regulars still walking. Communities such as Deadmalls.com and Retail Archaeology have documented them for years, and many of those photos now get filed under liminal spaces.
Are empty malls actually dangerous?
A working mall at 7 a.m. is not. Vacant and derelict buildings are another matter, and people generally feel unsafe in them for good reason. If you want to photograph one, read about how to photograph liminal spaces and ask permission first.