which is more scalable for the database?

Suppose I have a database table with 20 fields which are lookups to a
single table.

configtable(configtable_id, a_field, something_lookup_id,
another_lookup_id, ...)
lookup(lookup_id, value, description, ...)


what is going to be faster to map the rows to an Object which needs
the 'value' for every field ending in lookup_id


a) View


select c.configtable_id, l1.value as something_lookup, l2.value as
another_lookup
from configtable c,
       lookup l1,
       lookup l2
where c.something_lookup_id = l1.lookup_id
    and c.another_lookup_id = l2.lookup_id


foreach row
   map values to object
end


b) Cache all lookup values and populate


select c.* from configtable


foreach row
   map values to object
   if lookup_id
       find value from hashtable and map value to object
   endif
end


It seems that the latter *might* be better to scale outward better,
as
you could add application servers to do the caching/mapping and you
only select from a single table?