Abstract
The design characteristics of shopping centers, their meaning as public spaces, and impact on city centers, urban culture, and development have been widely discussed in the urban planning literature. Most scholars and practitioners have concluded that shopping centers have negatively impacted most inner cities and the environment around the world—although in reality, this is open to discussion. Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America contains the personal memoir of the innovator of shopping centers, Victor Gruen, edited and translated by Anette Baldauf. The memoir shows that shopping centers came into existence because of individual and social needs and when designed for public utility, they are unique urban spaces. It has seven chapters, edited and translated by Baldauf, and then four additional chapters at the end of the book: an epilogue (Epilogue) where Gruen offers final words on his professional aspirations over the years; a short section (Afterword) authored by Gruen’s son, describing the relationship between father and son; an essay (More about My Mother) by Gruen’s daughter, reflecting on her mother’s impact on Gruen and his work; and finally, Baldauf’s final chapter (Consumed?) on Gruen’s heritage and legacy. The book contains selected photos and drawings by Baldauf, illustrating Gruen’s activities. Baldauf’s research is based on many archival and media sources, resulting in a sophisticated book with personal, professional, and academic endeavors. It offers background information on the creation, the development, and the evolution of shopping centers and explains the differences in urban development practices in U.S. and European cities.
The memoir focuses on how shopping centers came into existence during the postwar transformation of U.S. cities and provides insights on how Gruen changed the global vision of urban space. In addition, the memoir presents a unique personal and professional perspective of one of the most influential pioneering architects of the twentieth century. It delves into the fundamental constructs of a personality, driven with survival instincts, pushed to an extreme amid political struggles before and during World War II. Some readers may wonder about whether shopping centers are in fact the product of a more complex, creative, and pervasive process than pure design. Gruen saw the lack of quality and devastating isolation in most city centers in the US at the time and compared their characteristics with downtown Vienna, Austria, his hometown. Thus, he was commissioned as the architect for J. L. Hudson’s Northland Center, the first (open air) shopping center, which opened in 1954 in Detroit (which is demolished as of this writing). Indeed, the book weaves the social, political, environmental, and physical context behind a vision, focusing on the satisfaction of social interaction and consumption.
In chapter 1 (Vienna, 1938), Gruen describes his adult life in Vienna before he fled to the US in 1938, including his hardships in Vienna as a Jew. In chapter 2 (Flashback), he describes aspects of his childhood and adulthood, illustrating that he had a colorful, interesting childhood in addition to many difficulties that made him a stronger person in adulthood. In his twenties, he was an early achiever, always interested in creating spaces and design, renovating homes, and designing shops in Vienna. In chapter 3 (Discovering America), he discusses his professional accomplishments in the US that began with designing several stores and storefronts in Manhattan. He also explains how his observations of urban areas and development in the US have created the basis for his idea for a neighborhood center located off a main road.
The first three chapters describe the trajectory of his personal life and the ideas that influenced his innovations in retail. For example, on a very hot and humid day in New York City, Gruen tried to find a place where he and his family could stroll in the cool shade and then have a meal. However, the only solution was to drive around town. These discussions are enriched by Baldauf’s selection of photographs from Gruen’s personal archives, along with his initial illustrations of proposed storefronts, hunting for the perfect design for the most attractive commercial space, commissioned by Ludwig Lederer in New York City in 1939. He criticizes retail and commercial construction principles in the US which “lack . . . individuality, originality and inventiveness in the field of retail and commercial construction” (p. 73) compared with the quality of urban space in many European cities. U.S. cities are car-oriented whereas European cities have public transportation and are walkable.
In chapter 4 (The Big Breakthrough), Gruen discusses formative innovative processes in architecture and urban design, along with entrepreneurial activities in retail. Gruen always looked for novelties in design and never settled for the ordinary. He had exceptional networking skills, and his ideas became reality as he was able to effectively utilize his social and professional networks. He explored Detroit with great curiosity, and met and collaborated with Oscar Webber. Gruen’s architectural vision reconciled with “Webber’s ethical attitude and entrepreneurship” and then merged into “long-term planning, thinking and acting” (p. 123), which resulted in Northland Center.
In chapter 5 (Development of the Storm), Gruen describes how his original idea of shopping centers gained publicity and became a tool for profit-making, increasing awareness of the impact of commercial spaces on urban development. Both in Europe and the US, politicians, professionals, businessmen, and community members took sides for how to label this architectural artifact with a quest of its future impact on city centers. According to Gruen, his own version of good ideas and designs of shopping centers had been misunderstood as most developers were not able to grasp certain intangible aspects of the design process, such as mixing public spaces along with commercial spaces for social engagement. He was upset about the fact that some major principles that he adopted in his design, such as detailed planning, inclusion of social activities, and diversity in leasing were abandoned in future shopping center designs.
Indeed, he pointed out that the vast increase in the number of shopping centers around the US and then other countries around the world, along with the vast increase in the number of automobiles, resulted in unplanned and uncontrolled growth that had detrimental effects on city centers and the environment. For that reason, he examined urban renewal and analyzed pedestrian spaces, as well as other types of civic and commercial activities and their affiliation with city centers. He also offered evidence from his international experience in Iran and Russia to identify the strengths and weaknesses of planning and architecture under various political systems. His ideas about and vision of city centers have been influential on city center revitalizations, for example, in Fort Worth, Texas, and Fresno, California.
In chapter 6 (Architectura), Gruen reflects on what architecture meant to him. He explains how its meaning had evolved into something different with a profound impact on cities. He explains the stages of this change with principles of influential architects and urban visionaries, from Vitrivius to Le Corbusier, Gropius, van der Rohe, and the era of Brutalism in the 1950s and 1960s. He explains how an architect should be loyal to his or her ideals against the ideas of clients. At a broader scale, he frequently mentions how the intrusions of technology and automobiles, as well as the rapid transit systems, are to blame for urban sprawl. Toward the end of the 1970s, shopping center developments translated into unconstrained urban growth and urban sprawl as well as large profits for developers.
In chapter 7 (Environmental Planning), he discusses significant issues of environmental planning, explaining how he steered his career from private entrepreneurship toward public utility and how he defined new goals for himself. When he returned to Vienna in 1963, he became a missionary and an advocate of good urban design and planning by increasing awareness about environmental problems, and city center redevelopment and revitalization. This chapter and the following epilogue describe his way of giving back to the community.
The two chapters authored by Gruen’s children focus on the family, offering detailed intimate, personal insights on the main pillars of Gruen’s life. His son describes his childhood memories, admiring his father, and discusses that Gruen argues that his grand design has been interpreted unfairly, and that he was “implicitly held responsible for the multitudinous errors” of others by being “the father of the shopping center” (p. 256). His daughter, however, offers another side of Gruen’s professional story and dwells on her mother’s importance for her father’s career. She explains that Gruen would not be able to launch his business without her mother who was an excellent artist and a capable design partner, putting Gruen’s ideas on paper.
In the final chapter, Baldauf portrays Gruen’s heritage and legacy in altering the fundamental definition of public space by disconnecting the individual, mainly women, from everyday life and offering an opportunity to visit a shopping center, a unique but sterilized environment. She focuses on the evolution of Gruen’s personal and professional journey and discusses the specific characteristics of vital urban spaces in shopping centers within the historic and political conjuncture of Gruen’s time. She discusses how Gruen disliked the transformation of shopping centers from elegant, fashionable public spaces to soulless architectural artifacts that are detached from their surrounding area and that can only be accessed by cars. She also depicts and links later developments in conjuncture with today’s economic, social, political forces, along with globalization, gentrification, mallification, and junk space.
In sum, Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America discusses Victor Gruen’s professional and personal life in the postwar urbanism era, characterized by many large-scale developments in urban planning. The book is a significant contribution and will appeal to architects, urban planners, urban designers, real estate and land development professionals, economic and retail geographers, and policy makers, among other professionals. It is a very interesting and seminal read, and Baldauf deserves recognition for uncovering many nuanced stories behind the making of shopping centers today.