Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream

From the Publisher description: "In Mall Maker, the first biography of the visionary spirit of Victor Gruen, Mr Hardwick 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. Throughout Hardwick illuminates the dramatic shifts in American culture during the mid-twentieth century, notably the rise of suburbia and autos, the death of downtown, the effect these changes had on American life. Gruen championed the redesign of suburbs and cities through giant shopping malls, earnestly believing that he was promoting an American ideal, the ability to build a community. Yet, as malls began covering the landscape and downtowns became more derpressed, Gruen became painfully aware that his dream of overcoming social problems through architecture and commerce was slipping away. By the tumultuous year of 1968, it had disappeared." Available November 2003.

Brand new.

pub date: 2003 publisher: Univ. Penn pages: 272 format: Hardcover ISBN: 812237625 sku: 4230 $35.00 (Qty avail: 1)