The Intersection of Branding and Architecture: The Brandscape of Joy City Mall in China

Abstract

This study explores the complex interplay between branding and architecture. I engage the term brandscape to demarcate this zone of interplay and consider brandscapes to be the point at which branding and architecture become more blended (and less discernible) in contemporary consumer cultures. I extend the understanding of the concept of brandscape through a detailed study of retail architecture in the Chinese Joy City mall series. The focus on Chinese shopping malls relates to the unique position of mall architecture in China, manifesting as a brand in its own right and responding to the fast rise of consumerism. The branded Chinese shopping mall series Joy City exemplifies the conspiration of branding and architecture, characterised by identity-formation, semiotics and phantasmagorical features.

Given the nature of this focus, the research involves architectural inquiry bolstered by a critical methodology, encompassing theorised and multi-disciplinary studies; research methods include literature surveys, case studies and visual studies.The working definition and the existing scholarship related to “brandscape” are extended by exploring particular instances of the complex interplay of branding and architecture. The particularity of the relation is framed through interdisciplinary insights, socio-economic and cultural studies. By identifying the interwoven characteristics of branding and architecture in the brandscape of the Chinese Joy City malls, I make an original contribution to the realms of architectural theory related to retail cultures and concerning the semi-autonomous nature of architecture itself. By emphasising the deepening interplay and particularities of the relation between branding and architecture, the study significantly broadens architects’ understanding of the imperative and characteristics of brandscapes and, in turn, demonstrates the significance of both theoretical and practical implications.