Centers for the urban environment; survival of the cities.

by Victor Gruen

Genres: Urbanism

266 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1997

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.