Victor Gruen

Victor David Gruen, born Viktor David Grünbaum, was an Austrian-American architect best known as a pioneer in the design of shopping malls in the United States. He is also noted for his urban revitalization proposals, described in his writings and applied in master plans such as for Fort Worth, Texas (1955), Kalamazoo, Michigan (1958) and Fresno, California (1965). An advocate of prioritizing pedestrians over cars in urban cores, he was also the designer of the first climate controlled shopping center in the United States, Southdale Center, and the first outdoor pedestrian mall in the United States, the Kalamazoo Mall.