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Since the end of World War II, the shopping center has been diffused as a building type through the western world and has acquired a central role in suburban territories. It is perceived as a "standardized" building and as the product of the process of economic globalization. Most of the time, the shopping center is conceived on the basis of regional considerations, and so it presents difficult connections with the surrounding urban tissues. Even if it contributes in an important manner to the life of suburbia, it is an introverted building that has limited relationships with exterior spaces. / The thesis, through an analysis of the shopping centre in the United States, Canada and France, wants to shed light on the progressive emergence of its form and spatial characteristics in those countries. This comparative study underlines the mechanisms of diffusion of the shopping center paradigm developed up in the United States and the consequences of its transfer in the other contexts. The morphological and longitudinal analysis of shopping centers located in the Los Angeles, Montreal and Paris metropolitan areas aims to evaluate the influence of the local context on the emergence of specificities related to this building type, to the urban tissues containing it, and to their respective evolution over time.