While it strikes me as unlikely that architects of modern shopping malls had medieval cathedrals in mind when they drew up their plans, there are nevertheless some similarities  betwixt the two.

Many malls have a wide central aisle not unlike that of a cathedral, with shops on either sides and smaller aisles leading off to a similar pattern of shops. Cathedrals also have such aisles, often running parallel to central one (the nave) and then smaller 'aisles' off to the left or right that may lead to chapels, before the transept crosses the church some where near the middle. In addition, many malls in the postmodern style have exterior buttresses, even flying buttresses. They often have vast ceilings too, which suggest wealth, power and prestige.

But far more than architectural similarities are the spiritual ones. The modern mall replaces the cathedral as the epicentre of communal life, where the values of consumer capitalism, the potential usurper of Christianity, can be entertained, exalted and experienced. Money, in whatever form it might take, is exchanged for goods, the latter providing a temporary release from the hollow daily drag of life. Meaning has been exchanged for what is acquisitive. This is not to blame those trapped in the cycle, for a trap it is, nor even the creators of the system, who may have had the best of intentions.

I have often thought about these parallels, boring soul that I am. A case, of course, can be made against such thinking, though I have yet to hear it.