Main entry:

Wall, Alex.

Title & Author:

Victor Gruen : from urban shop to new city / Alex Wall.

Publication:

Barcelona : Actar, 2005.

Description:

267 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm

Notes:
Cover title.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-266) and index.
Commerce is the engine of urburnity. Commerce and the city. -- Merchandising is the Master -- the building, the tool. -- Think of it as an experimental workshop. A shopping centre is more than a collection of stores. -- Gruens search for form and space. -- The architects and the regional shopping centre. -- A lesson for downtown. -- The car and the city. -- Playing catch-up with the suburbs. -- Up against urban renewal. -- Urban design and planning. -- Alternatives to sprawl. -- From cluster planning to new cities. -- Are new towns and cities possible. -- The desirable city.

Summary:

"Victor Gruen is the commercial architect who became renowned in 1950s America as the "pioneer of the shopping center," then by his urban redevelopment projects as the "savior of the downtowns," and by the mid-1960s as the "architect of the environment." From Urban Shops to New City focuses on Gruen's theories and projects, especially with respect to the terms that he set for himself: the return of the city center and urban public space as the focus of the social and cultural life of the region. The context of his vision, however, was the "triumph" of the suburbs and the collapse of the American downtowns. Gruen's successes and failures engaged or prefigured every important commercial retail development, and planning trend since World War II; thus his work is a crucial vehicle for understanding the transformation of American cityscape and landscape, and is a starting point for asking the questions: What kind of city do we want?"--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents

ISBN:

8495951878 (paperback)
9788495951878 (paperback)

Subject:

Gruen, Victor, 1903-1980.
Gruen, Victor, 1903-
Shopping centers United States History.
City planning United States History 20th century.
Centres commerciaux États-Unis Histoire.
Urbanisme États-Unis Histoire 20e siècle.
City planning.
Shopping centers.
United States.

Form/genre:

History.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 242901
Call No.: BIB 172702
Status: Available