Over the years three more office towers have been added, along with two more shopping wings, and another hotel tower.
Photo-The 17th annual
Houston Chronicle Best Dressed Luncheon
and Neiman Marcus Fashion Show.
The original layout of The Galleria began with a three-story glass roofed promenade shopping area. The ice rink was placed on the lower level and ran half the length of the promenade. Also included were a hotel tower and an office tower. From day one, tenants included an elite mix of stores not found anywhere else in the Houston area.
Being open for the hotel patrons made this unique in another aspect, for guests and office workers alike could walk directly from the hotel and offices into the mall. Rybczynski states that "this introduction of noncommercial tenants... which made them more like traditional downtowns, raised the issue of public access." To this day there are no gates or locked outside doors and the mall area is open 24 hours a day. Visitors may come in off the streets and just walk the mall, much like pedestrians did years ago when they strolled downtown just to window shop while the stores were closed. The only differences are that now they are in a covered area, and it is a private place. Unlike public downtown areas, a visitor must get permission to photograph any inside area.
Over the years three more office towers have been added, along with two more shopping wings, and another hotel tower.
The ice rink draws tourists and locals alike who can get a touch of winter without fighting the snow. When the rink is covered, it can be a focal point for special events. Paul Goldberger calls these malls the "new American downtown... (The Galleria) is a private place run by private enterprise, completely indoors,.. making up for the effect that the auto has destroyed downtowns." The realization that the auto has changed our way we see the downtown is evident when the marketing representative from The Galleria was asked how far away the mall was from downtown Houston. She knew it was 20 minutes by car, but had no idea as to the number of miles.
The malls have "taken on the function of the city," as Goldberger says. This mall has more than just the regular shops. A United States Post Office, bank, and stockbroker are a few of the different tenants normally not associated with malls that give the customers more reasons to visit Galleria and not the downtown area.
More than 6,000 workers are currently employed in the office towers alone. To feed these workers along with the mall patrons, restaurants line the first floor of the original promenade area, with "outdoor cafes" lining one whole section. Brick pavers have been added to give visitors the impression that they truly are just off the street.
Submitted by: Philip Smith, Eastern Michigan University
References:Frieden, Bernard J., and Lynne B. Sagalyn. Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990.
Newquest, Sue. Marketing Representative, Hines Galleria Management Co. Telephone interview. 3 March 1999.
"Pride of Place: Building the American Dream." Speakers Roberts A. M. Stern and Paul Goldberger. South Carolina Educational Television. Videocassette. PBS Video, date unknown.
Rybczynski, Witold. City Life: Urban Expectations in a New World. New York: Scribner, Inc., 1995.
Photos taken by the author, 3 March 1999.
Suggested other pages... Physical Strategies Functional Strategies .
