The Jun, 1977 issue of Popular Science featured this insane plan for a vertical shopping mall that used a kind of Ferris wheel to rotate customers past the windows of shops. Anyone know if this thing ever got built?
Cabs in this people-mover will whisk up and down on a continuous belt–something like a Ferris wheel. The Revolator is planned for a multilevel shopping center that's being built in Morristown, N.J. Each cab will hold 150 shoppers, so a six-unit system could transport 40,000 an hour–far more than elevators or escalators. Cabs will move in unison every 60 seconds, stopping at each floor. The glass-enclosed system gives shoppers a view of all stores as they pass each floor. "Visibility and store frontage are of prime consideration in vertical centers," says architect Lathrop Douglas whose firm conceived the Revolator.
For faster shopping: a Revolator (Jun, 1977)
