The Market Place (Orange County, California)

The Market Place (also known as the Tustin Market Place or the Tustin/Irvine Market Place) is an outdoor mall located in Orange County, California straddling the border between the cities of Tustin and Irvine. Opened in 1988, the mall is located along Jamboree Road just northeast of Interstate 5. Anchor stores stores include Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Dick's Sporting Goods, Lowe's, The Home Depot, Target, Toys "R" Us, Babies R' Us, and two Edwards Theatres. The mall is owned by The Irvine Company.

Design

The Market Place covers an area of 1.6 million square feet. The Market Place has more than 120 stores, restaurants, cafes and theaters, and is a rare example of a late-century Brutalist design. Designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, it consists of monumental but extremely simplified cubic forms, with anchor stores marked by massive towers roughly high displaying the store name. The center is also unique in that all the store signs are displayed in neon. The overall design operates on the idea that center's tenants add most of the color and character to the otherwise plain center, a concept that had previously (though unsuccessfully) been attempted with Britain's Tricorn Centre. The buildings are arranged in a ring around a large central series of parking lots and fast-food restaurants. The center on the whole has a "desert" look to it, with parking lots shaded under groves of date palms, and extensive rock landscaping around the perimeter...
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