Reading Socio-Spatial Interplay - Arkitektur- og designhøgskolen i ...

R E A D I N G S O C I O - S P A T I A L I N T E R P L A Y P A R T 2Specialist food storesThere is a wide range of immigrant-run food stores in the study areas – smalllocal corner shops, larger supermarkets, and more general groceries andspecialized food stores such as halal butcher shops and supermarkets thatmainly provide imported goods from particular areas such as for instanceVietnam, Turkey or Pakistan. Most of the chain supermarkets in Oslo are infact run by immigrants, but then without the iconographical and micromorphologicalcharacteristics of the typical immigrant food store. In herstudy of “ethnic minorities and culinary entrepreneurship” in Oslo, AnneKrogstad 359 has elucidated patterns in individual strategies for realization ofdesires and personal projects in situations that are characterized by limitedpossibilities. In addition, her investigation demonstrates the importance ofimmigrant food shops and eateries in current cultural exchange by what shedescribes as “integration via the taste buds”. My focus in the followinginvestigation is first and foremost on visually observable patterns in howtypical immigrant food shops appear in the streetscape, how they exploit thearchitectural situation, and how they transform aspects of the streetscape – bythe introduction of elements of exotic “otherness”, by patterns in streetorientation, and by representing a pragmatic, cheap and apparently unconceitedcontrast to some of the more staged and thoroughly designedspecialist food shops run by and oriented towards ethnic Norwegians.In the typical immigrant food shop the street façade is totally dominated bycolorful exhibition of fruits and vegetables in cases on shelves, usually withhandwritten prize signs. The focus in the visual presentation of these shops isthe quality, prize and assortment of goods – visually arranged to expose theexcess and variety towards the public street – and not the design profile or theshop space itself. The exterior exposure of fruits and vegetables works bothas a sidewalk extension of the shop space, as an advertising board and asbate: customers have to enter the interior shop space to pay. The door is oftencovered by advertisement international telephone cards. Also on the insidethe visual presentation of the goods seems to emphasize an image ofexcessive variety of inexpensive and more or less exotic importedmerchandise. One can see fluorescent prize signs and piles of goods. In thelarger immigrant supermarkets many different types of rice in economy size 5kilo bags can for instance be found, in addition to buckets of olives, driedfruit etc. Even the smaller, more marginal local corner shops expose theirwide range of dry foods, fresh bread, børeks or spring rolls around thecounter, while the more limited assortment of for instance dairy products areplaced in the back of the shop.359 Anne Krogstad 2002: En stille revolusjon i matveien. Etniske minoriteter og kulinarisk entreprenørskap,Institutt for samfunnsforskning (Institute for Social Reseach), Oslo.208