Victor Gruen, Inventor of the Modern Mall

Malcolm Gladwell referred to Architect Victor Gruen, inventor of the modern mall, as"one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century."

Photo of Victor Gruen - Courtesy of the American Heritage Center

Gruen was born in Vienna, Austria on July 18th, 1903 (died February 14, 1980.)  He was considered the pioneer of the shopping mall in America.  After emigrating to the United States in 1938, he worked as a draftsman for many shops in New York City.  He later to moved to Los Angeles and opened his own firm, Victor Gruen Associates.  He designed the first suburban open air facility outside of Detroit in 1954 called the Northland Mall.  Gruen followed up this success with the first enclosed shopping mall in Minnesota in 1956 for the owners of the Dayton Department Stores.  He went on to design Midtown Plaza in Rochester, NY (near where I grew up), which was the first downtown indoor mall in the United States, in 1962.

When Gruen designed Midtown Plaza, he was at the height of his career.  This project attracted national attention, including a nationally televised feature report on NBC's Huntley-Brinkley newscast on the night of it's opening April 1962.  City officials and planners from around the world came to see Gruen's solution to the mid-century urban crisis.  Midtown Plaza also won several design awards.

Clock Tower at Midtown Plaza - 1st Downtown Indoor Mall in America

Through the 1970's Gruen's firm designed over 50 malls.  In the late 1970's, Gruen disevowed shopping mall developments stating they "bastardized" his ideas.