Mall Housing, Part I

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

I came across a blurb in The Next American City magazine, about a group who secretly constructed and lived in a 750 square foot apartment inside the huge Providence Place Mall, in the heart of the downtown core of Rhode Island's largest city.

Providence Place is a modern atrium-style, multi-level, shopping mecca:

Whether the group -- the "Trummerkind Collective" -- undertook their caper to find affordable housing in the heart of downtown or in the spirit of "performance art," it's the kind of undertaking that's hard to feel upset about. Even local officials, on discovering the secret abode four years after it was constructed, seemed more bemused than angry.

Here's how the Providence Journal first reported the story on October 2, 2007:

"Eight artists snuck into the depths of Providence Place mall and built a secret studio apartment in which they stayed, on and off, for nearly four years until mall security finally caught their leader last week.

The story of their audacious stunt -- they call it performance art -- spilled out in District Court, after the leader, Michael J. Townsend, 36, of Providence, was arrested. He pleaded no contest to a criminal charge of trespassing.

Townsend, a self-described 'professional public artist,' said the clandestine project was born of a wish to explore the phenomenon of the modern American enclosed mall, its social implications, and his own relationship with commerce and the world."

In a later story, the Providence Journal noted that "the story of how a plucky band of artists managed to live, off and on, inside the mall for nearly four years without being caught seemed to capture the public’s imagination."

The Trummerkind Collective has posted some fascinating material, including photos and videos, on their web site. And here's a two minute video on YouTube with a look inside their apartment:

As they describe the project's origins, "During the Christmas season of 2003 and 2004, radio ads for the Providence Place Mall featured an enthusiastic female voice talking about how great it would be if you (we) could live at the mall. The central theme of the ads was that the mall not only provided a rich shopping experience, but also had all the things that one would need to survive and lead a healthy life.  This, along with a wide variety of theoretical musings about my relationship to the mall -- as a citizen and public artists -- provided the final catalyst for making the apartment."

Trummerkind has even posted their own real estate advertisement for their inside-the-mall apartment.

But perhaps the biggest irony is that the Trummerkind Collective may inadvertently be on to something, as mall developers are starting to consider the benefits of including housing within their projects -- though assuredly not rent-free! More on this in my next post.