Architects-- enemies of humanity

[flemmings]

I have been in some immensely stupidly designed places; I have been in buildings whose main purpose is clearly to keep people out (Robarts Library, I *am* looking at you) or confuse them utterly (any major airport in the world) or make them realize the insignificance of their ant-like existence when they can't even find the exit without going down two flights of stairs and asking directions (Shibuya Station shudder moan.)

I have never been in a store that combined all the above features until yesterday. (Not even Honest Ed's. Honest Ed's merely needs signage to be comprehensible. It doesn't have it for the obvious reason.) Blahblahs at St. Clair and sort-of Bathurst, you fail utterly.

This place is purportedly a supermarket. Its single roadside entrance is cleverly concealed under the banner for the photo store, one of many large signs, none of which are for Loblaws proper. On entering you're in a tiny entry space and must at once make two right turns, passing through a small bakery and coffee section with no supermarket in sight. You then come to a moving sidewalk that goes up to the second floor. Arriving at the second floor you find yourself in a football field of greengrocery. This is fine if you want veg but I'd never buy my veg from Blahblahs. Where are the dry goods?

Ah, for *those* you must traverse the football field to its far corner, round the wall there, and *then* a second football field of aisles opens before you. I'm accustomed to Blahblahs' idiosyncratic shelving policy from my local version of same (which doesn't have the *room* to stock my soy powder breakfast shake, is why I'm here up the hill.) I still must make my way through the organic section, which doesn't have soy powder, and the meal supplement section, which has the wrong kind of soy powder, and ask a clerk where this eminently forgettably named stuff hides out. Ah! It's in the diet section! Obviously. Those vitamins and minerals aren't meal replacements, they're diet aids.

I can only assume there's a grand royal entrance on the parking lot side for those who come in their cars. I didn't see it. And if there is, screw you again, Blahblahs. Your carbon footprint dirties Toronto's skies.

At least there are bike posts on the St Clair side. Pausing only to dodge cars turning left from St Clair, cars turning right, cars heading straight to that little street that goes nowhere, and streetcars preparing to descend the ramp into the station, I mount my bicycle and pedal away to civilization at the foot of the hill. Coming up, I noted the region houses sporting lawn signs saying Shop on St Clair!, evidently a move to keep local businesses alive. Fat bloody chance, man.

Comments

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Eh. I always get lost in stores, even ones I've been in a bazillion times, so this isn't a novel sensation for me. But your store sounds as though it could be entertaining to get lost in. Like a shrubbery maze.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Au contraire, the veg section is a terrifying place for an agoraphobe. But the aisles are indeed like shrubbery mazes and non-intuitive as hell, for the tried and true 'promote impulse buying' reason. This is why I refuse to buy anything but what I came for when I find myself in places like that.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

I hate it when I can't find my way about in a supermarket! I meant to say add 'as well' there.

And also for the fact that the Powers That Be of supermarkets obviously don't see eye-to-eye with me on the classification of several items!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The simple act of shopping should not require a steep learning curve, but that's how they do it.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

I'm normally pretty good at finding my way around places generally acclaimed confusing, but those have signs. This place of yours sounds like a challenging sort of consumer-trap!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Signs. Ah, signs. We don't need no stinking signs except the one that instructs you how to get your shopping cart off the moving sidewalk without tripping up the people behind you. Yes there's a ramp for those who detest moving anythings, but it's blocked at both ends so you can't use it.

I'm still trying to get my head around a totally unused first floor with no signs telling you where to go. Takes 'if you have to ask you don't belong here' a bit far. And a second floor that's in fact two storeys high because uhh we like wasting space?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Is Shibuya more confusing than Shinjuku? I once tried to leave Shinjuku-eki heading west. One of the great mistakes of my life-- it should not be impossible to tell when you are leaving a train station. The friend I was meeting later that week, when told about it, said something along the lines of oh god, you did what? And did the dimensional portal spit you back out, or am I talking to a doppelganger?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

By me Shibuya station the building is more confusing than Shinjuku same, largely because the trains arrive on what's basically the second or-is-it-third floor of a department store. One's basic notion of what's where is thus off from the start. (Above-ground Shibuya makes no sense either.) The 'Shinjuku underground passage', essentially, requires much negotiation before you know where you are. That's east Shinjuku. West Shinjuku-- well, a friend gave me the basic tip in my first week in Tokyo. "If you're in west Shinjuku get yourself above ground as soon as possible, because underground is a snare and a delusion." Useless for anything except finding the municipal gov't buildings, basically, because that's where you end up. Or ended up in my day; by now it may stretch well into Shibuya-ku.

There's a reason I always carried a compass in my bag when I travelled in Tokyo, and underground walkways was it.