A Walmart somewhere in the world
At the bottom of the hill near our house Walmart is building a store, and although the Grand Opening date has not yet been posted, it looks as though it will be ready soon. Hundreds of empty pallets littering the parking lot suggest merchandise is being placed on shelves.
Undaunted, Walmart signed a deal with one of the local First Nations Reserves to build on several hectares of estuary on First Nations land. Perhaps as a token of its victory, Walmart decided to build a 'mega' store instead of one of its regular, run of the mill behemoths.
Part of our Campbell River estuary lands
I don't like Walmart for many of the reasons other people don't. They pay their employees very little money, the profits leave the country, the merchandise is all made in China, they put the 'Ma and Pop's' out of business, they seem to have an ultra-conservative agenda, and of course, they could care less about the ecosystem of a marshland estuary.
Those estuary lands were home to bird species that would winter along the Amazon, and summer only in our Campbell River estuary. Some plant species grew only there. Fish spawned, frogs hopped, and sea otters frolicked. Bald eagles still sit atop their tree, but now look over a parking lot full of pallets.
There is more to it than this. Walmart is emblematic of a complete rejection of art. The new building at the bottom of our street is a box surrounded by pavement. If one were set the task of designing a building devoid of esthetics, one would be hard pressed to best a Walmart mega store. It is as if someone took the basic design and wrung it like a wet rag to squeeze out all of the art.
Those estuary lands were home to bird species that would winter along the Amazon, and summer only in our Campbell River estuary. Some plant species grew only there. Fish spawned, frogs hopped, and sea otters frolicked. Bald eagles still sit atop their tree, but now look over a parking lot full of pallets.
There is more to it than this. Walmart is emblematic of a complete rejection of art. The new building at the bottom of our street is a box surrounded by pavement. If one were set the task of designing a building devoid of esthetics, one would be hard pressed to best a Walmart mega store. It is as if someone took the basic design and wrung it like a wet rag to squeeze out all of the art.
Walmart is only one of many corporations that make such horrible box stores. Some of them (Costco) even require a membership for the right to shop at their horribly ugly stores. Why do they build such ugly buildings?
Another bloody Costco
We as consumers are conditioned to seek out and buy only those items 'On Sale'. We are attracted to big box stores because we suspect that there will be more cheap things in them than at the smaller, family run businesses. Further, we suspect that if the corporations have put zero money and effort into architecture and esthetics, somehow merchandise will be even cheaper. In essence, we as consumers have traded away art for cheaper stuff. This period may well earn us the dubious distinction of having the ugliest commercial buildings in the history of our culture.
Gaudi architecture in Barcelona: what it could be like
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