Terminated vistas: focusing the power of urban retail

New Urban News Article with images, 1/1/05

Developers and stores increasingly recognize the economic advantages of key locations in town centers.

If you drive into the Pyramid Mall near Ithaca, New York, your view terminates on the blank corner of a Target store. There is no entrance, no feature — not even a sign at the center of the field of view. This would not happen in a new urban town center. There the vista would very likely focus on the entrance to an architecturally significant building or offer a deflected view of numerous tenants.

Although the concept of the terminated vista has been known to retailers for years and is regularly used in some conventional shopping centers, it wields more power in an urban environment, according to experts interviewed by New Urban News. In suburbia, there is typically too little enclosure (in the case of a strip shopping center) or too much enclosure (on the inside of a mall) to give the terminated vista great significance.

The terminated vista — a view that focuses on a consciously chosen object or scene — is one of a number of tools that are useful to town center designers but unavailable or less important in conventional retail development. Other tools include the placement of buildings and entrances directly on the corners of significant intersections and the use of plazas or squares to give retailers high visibility.