The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure

by Victor Gruen

Spine is tight and pages clean on this paperback. Bottom edge has spotting from shelf wear.

Genres: Nonfiction, Urbanism, Urban Planning, History, Architecture

Paperback

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

Victor Gruen, born Viktor David Grünbaum, (July 18, 1903 – February 14, 1980), was an Austrian-born architect best known as a pioneer in the design of shopping malls in the United States. He is also noted for his urban revitalization proposals, described in his writings and applied in master plans such as for Fort Worth, Texas (1955), Kalamazoo, Michigan (1958) and Fresno, California (1965). An advocate of prioritizing pedestrians over cars in urban cores, he was also the designer of the first outdoor pedestrian mall in the United States, the Kalamazoo Mall.

Gruen was born on July 18, 1903, in a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. He studied architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. A committed socialist, from 1926 until 1934 he ran the "political cabaret at the Naschmarkt"-theatre.

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gruen designed some of the first malls and many pedestrian malls in the late 50s and 60s. This was his synopsis of all that is wrong with America, as seen at the height of suburban flight when there were no centers to the miles of residential houes. Cool ideas about utilitarian functions and peoples use of space. He hated the decentralization and sprawl and one solution was to create new centers where people could socialize and experience culture together. Ironically this was the mall, which he saw as the centers of dense new towns. Amazing how much I complain now about all the things that he was saying in 1964.

[Jnyama · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, and much less dry than you'd think it would be. A little sad, as few of his optimistic hopes for the future of the revitalized city ended up coming true--partially derailed by the mercenary bastardizations of his dream city core, the ubiquitous shopping mall.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

While probably an insightful book in its day; it reads rather basic and out of date now.

[Adam Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great study on human living environments.