The effects of utopic transformation of the shopping centers on fundamental components of architectural programs

This study compares the architectural programs in shopping centers, which are an indispensable element of urban culture, with the programs in the form of a single structure as part of the architectural culture in cities. In this comparison, plan, form, image, and material are accepted as the fundamental components of an architectural program and the findings are presented within the framework of these four components. As part of this study, four main programs, cinema, house of worship, children's playground, and street, were selected to be compared through urban and shopping center examples in order to discuss shopping centers and typology in our country on the upper scale. About 213 of the more than 400 shopping centers in Turkey are located in three metropolitan cities such as Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, thus the shopping centers selected within the scope of the study are limited to these three cities. In the study, when the relevant analysis is given, an idea is presented, especially through the concepts of non-place and simulacra, and as a result, it is found that the shopping centers are simulacra due to the transformation of the programs selected as examples over time. This transformation and analysis showed that cinema, place of worship, children's playground, and street programs also damaged people's experience in these places after they were included in the shopping center. In this case, shopping centers, which are constantly increasing and expanding in a holistic structure, destroy the architecture, the typological content of a building and the spirit of places. Therefore, architectural programs in shopping centers, which have undergone a utopian transformation, need a new definition.