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 2to provide for unobstructed visual contact between the thoroughly designedshop space and the public street space. Thus it is as much the thoroughlydesigned shop space as the commodities themselves that are at display. It isalso worth to notice a characteristic difference between the Pakistani andIndian textile shops and the more life style-oriented textile shops when itcomes to how the articles are displayed in the interior of the shop: In theIndian and Pakistani textile shops the articles are piled up to expose both theabundance and the wide range of articles that are kept – all of them markedwith large fluorescent prize tags announcing low prizes. In the life styleorientedclothing shops fewer pieces of garments are exposed. The idea is togive an image of exclusiveness rather than abundance, and the prize tags arediscretely placed. Rather than being filled up with articles for sale, the shopinterior is designed and decorated in ways that call attention to the uniqueselection of commodities the customers can find in the shop: As described bythe informants in the shop-interviews, the interior of the shops areconsciously design to create a particular authentic “feeling” of style,adventure and well-being:The manager of a gift shop says that they have chosen aminimalist design combined with a ‘touch of Asia’ toaccentuate their assortment of gifts and gadgets – they want toprovide their customers with a “sense of traveling”. Both theinterior of the shop and the range of merchandise are carefullyselected. The walls are for instance painted in deep orange, “togive associations to St. Petersburg”. The ideal customers arebelieved to be experienced travelers that know to “appreciateand become exited by the feeling” of the shop (#324). Twofriends that run a second-hand metal and punk music shop havepainted and decorated both the façade (in black and red) andthe interior, “exactly as we liked to” (the inside of the shop hasgrey mural walls that are decorated with personally collectedand precious items: things that definitely are not for sale). Theyunderline that they had collected music and related items andgadgets for 10 years before they decided that it was about timeto start a shop: “We are both 30 years old now, and here we arein our second childhood”. The music they sell is just of a kind“that will give you a punch in the face”, furthermore they“refuse to play reggae unless fuzz-guitar is used” (#319). Anassociate in a street-wear shop says that they have painted thewalls in bright colors, at least five times: “This is definitely nota minimalist shop!” The shelves are home-made and thecounter has been bought at a flee-market: “The shop is226