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Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream. By M. Jeffrey Hardwick. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. 268 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. Cloth, $29.95. ISBN 0-812-23762-5.
Victor Gruen should rank among the most important American architects for the business historian. he was one of the first to immerse himself in the intricacies of retailing and then seek dramatically new environments to improve the retail business. Much as Albert Kahn had done with the staffs of Henry Ford and other automobile manufacturers in revolutionizing large-scale production plants beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century, the Los Angeles-based Gruen sought to reinvent the marketplace based on the changing demands of his clients. Like Kahn, Gruen accomplished this goal several times-first with the store, then with the regional shopping center, and finally with the downtown business district. But in contrast to most of Kahn's work, Gruen's designs enjoyed the limelight of the public realm. Few architects matched his impact on postwar landscapes that affected everyday life and also symbolized the ambient newness of the era.
Aside from a pioneering article by Howard Gillette (Journal of the American Planning Association, autumn 1985) and some discussion of his work in southern California by myself (City Center to Regional Mall, 1997), scholarly examination of Gruen in print has been meager. Jeffrey Hardwick's study, focusing on Gruen's career in the United States, from his arrival in 1938 to his return to Europe thirty years later, is particularly welcome under the circumstances. Drawing extensively from the enormous quantity of writings and publicity Gruen generated and from selected papers in two archival collections,...