This week I was visiting the building site of Liljeholmstorget market place, it is right now being rebuild into Liljeholms shopping mall (90 new shops). One thing I find interesting is that a lot of shopping malls in Sweden have got a lot of anti-demonstrations. Why? Because people feel that malls are destroying the community of old shops and social structures. In this case it is the opposite. Around 200 000 people live, work or travel to this central suburb. Today it is an grey-dark place you don’t like to stick around any longer than it takes for the bus to arrive. Since wintertime in Sweden nearly are to cold to be outdoors there is an large demand in social meeting places. In other words an tribe without a place to connect around.
I did talk with one of the architects Fredrik Elsner from Wester+Elsner. My interpreting of their work is that this building is connecting people function as an ant-hill with many different entries and places to stick around. CEO Mats Wallin at Ymer their advertising agency explain that every shop will have their own Twitter account – to have an direct connection to consumers how have interest in different shops. I do think this can become successful in many ways if the owner Citcon are saving some of the 103 000 Euros for manifestations and rituals for the creation of the mental tribe building. In other words connecting shopping with meaning. It will open 22 October so have wait and see how well this new tribe mall will attract and connect 200 000 of the potential tribe members. If they are successful in finding the right way of connecting they will soon find that 200 000 people is 200 000 radios that spread the word by creating buzz.