Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream
Hardcover
2004 · Philadelphia
by Hardwick, M. Jeffrey
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004. Hardcover. VG (Slight wear to top of dj, otherwise clean.). Dusty rose paper boards, dark blue cloth spine, blue & white & color illus. dust jacket, 276 pp., BW illus. "The first biography of this visionary spirit, [Austrian-born architect Victor Gruen (1903-1980)]. [This book] relates Gruen's successes and failures -- his work at the 1939 World's Fair, his makeover of New York's Fifth Avenue boutiques, his rejected plans for reworking entire communities, such as Fort Worth, Texas, and his crowning achievement, the enclosed shopping mall. ... Illuminates the dramatic shifts in American culture during the mid-twentieth century, notably the rise of suburbia and automobiles, the death of downtown, and the effect these changes had on American life." (dj). (Inventory #: 148070)