C O N T E X T 1 3 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 5 11 Carry on shopping (bookshops selling coffee, coffee shops selling music, supermarkets acting as banks), print on demand (books, and soon products as well), shopping as entertainment, and much more. What will retailing look like in five or 20 years time? We don’t have a clue. All we can be certain of is that the retailers will assure us that they know exactly what is needed and that they should be given their planning permission immediately. Whatever does happen is likely to present both threats and opportunities for the historic environment. If the move out of town is reversed, the decline and neglect of the high street might be reduced too. But the new pressure on high streets and town centres might treat the historic fabric as an obstacle. Retailing is a changing business: retailers tend to want premises that they can refashion every few years, and totally redevelop in only a few years more, if that is what the retail economy demands. It’s up to us to remind the retail sector that the development that they claim today as being essential to economic survival is what they will be demanding to rip out tomorrow. Amid the frenzy of consumption and the hunt for bargains, there are still some other things – buildings and places – that people value. ‘Parisians carry on shopping as mass graves are exhumed below their feet.’ So says today’s newspaper headline. The story is about the archaeologists who are unearthing hundreds of skeletons from eight mass graves under a Paris supermarket, which is extending its basement on a site where the medieval Hôpital de la Croix de la Reine stood. ‘Carry on shopping’: of course, that is what we do. Ours is a culture of consumption, and you can be sure that a few mass graves are not going to put us off. We have grown used to hearing the bought-in planning consultants and legal representatives of supermarket chains arguing at public inquiries that their clients understand the future of retailing in a way that no one else does. So it has come as something as a shock to some people (and a confirmation of what they believed to others) to hear some supermarket chains say in the last few months that their out-of-town-development strategies no longer work, and that some newly built superstores are to be mothballed. The face of retailing is changing. That should be no surprise. For decades we have had one innovation after another: self-service, supermarkets, superstores, mini-supermarkets, online shopping, self-scanning, sector blurring THE CHANGING FACE OF RETAIL
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