Sino Centre: Shopping Mall as a Cultural Space

Abstract

The research explores an organically formed cultural space, a shopping center at the heart of Hong Kong's busiest commercial district that has developed into an alternative model of popular cultural consumption under a disappearing ownership model - fragmented ownership. Within the context of the current land development policy in Hong Kong, this ownership model creates a shelter for the small scale, non-chain shops to survive under the tense competition with the international chained brands and still be able to operate in the shopping malls. Using Sino Centre as a case study, it represents a shopping mall under fragmented ownership and, at the same time, act as a cultural space that caters to diversified tastes of consumers. Besides the ownership model, the research will further look into the ecology within Sino Centre as a cultural space and the consumption patterns of the popular cultural products offered in Sino Centre while comparing with the highly standardized corporate own shopping mall in the same geographical location, the Langham Place in Mong Kok district.