When the critical theorist Walter Benjamin tried to embody the cultural condition of Paris in the 1930s, he identified the city’s shopping arcades as a microcosm of urban life. These arcades, he argued, marked the transformation of western society in the mid-19th century from one of production to one of consumption. The iron-framed, glass roofed passages, their displays sparkling at night, separated from the dinginess of the streets, became the dreamscapes of citizens escaping drudgery through the creation of desire.

On a recent visit to a vast shopping mall in the US, I saw a young girl wearing a pink T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I shop therefore I am.” Arcades, and their brash successors, malls, seem to encourage cultural critiques.