1- press release
I. VICTOR GRUEN & ASSOCIATES Victor Gruen & Associates is a planning team of architects and engineers with headquarters in Los Angeles and offices in Detroit, New York, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. Actively engaged in projects in almost every state as well as abroad, the Gruen organization was chosen as architect for Southdale in 1952. The five partners of the firm, Victor Gruen, Karl Van Leuven, Jr., R. L. Baumfeld, Edgardo Contini, and Ben S. Southland, were brought together in the common belief that individual ingenuity coupled with disciplined teamwork offers the best approach to today's complex problems in planning.
As senior partner, Victor Gruen is responsible for the concept development of major projects. R. L. Baumfeld heads the Los Angeles office and has been in charge of many large projects, among them the Southdale Center. Edgardo Contini directs engineering for the firm and is in charge of coordinating engineering and architectural design. Karl Van Leuven, Jr., head of the Detroit office, has been the partner in charge of such major projects as Northland Regional Shopping Center in Detroit. Ben S. Southland is chief designer and director of planning.
Herman Guttman, project coordinator for the Southdale Shopping Center, is head of the Victor Gruen Minneapolis office and is an associate in the firm. Victor Gruen & Associates has steadily expanded the range of its activities. In the commercial field, the firm has progressed from the planning of individual shops and department stores to the development of planned regional shopping centers that have changed American shopping habits.
In the residential field, Victor Gruen & Associates has planned everything from individual houses, apartments, and housing projects to complete community developments that meet all the needs of modem living. Among Gruen projects of special interest are: Milliron's Department Store (now The Broadway) in Los Angeles, the first one-story department store with roof parking. The Mid-Wilshire Medical Building and two 13-story Tishman Buildings in Los Angeles, all representing advances in design and planning (lightweight steel buildings).
A number of large regional shopping centers throughout the country, among them Northland in Detroit, the world's largest. Others include Eastland, also in suburban Detroit, Glendale in Indianapolis, Valley Fair and Bay Pair, both in the San Francisco Bay area, and South Bay in Redondo Beach, California.
(The latter in association with Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons, Architects A.I.A. ).
Master planning for the Palos Verdes Peninsula, providing for residential, civic, commercial, educational, and recreational development of an outstanding land area of 7000 acres.
Master planning for the redevelopment of a downtown area in Detroit (the Gratiot-Orieans area), in association with Oskar Stonorov and Minoru Yamasaki.
A comprehensive study for redevelopment of the entire downtown area of Fort Worth. Texas. The study has produced a dramatic plan for renewal of the heart of the city through a long- program aimed at solving traffic, parking, and urban rehabilitation problems.
The Gruen organization created the master plan for Southdale, in addition to designing the shopping center. In addition to Dayton's, it designed the following stores and special facilities: Egekvist Bakery, Boutell's, Walters, the First National Bank, Thorpe Bros., J. B. Hudson Company, Juster Bros., Peter Pan Restaurant, Bringgold Meat Company, Bjorkman's, Sidewalk Cafe. Garner Records, The Children's Center, and The Toy Fair.
II. VICTOR GRUEN
Victor Gruen, the head of Victor Gruen & Associates, was bom in Vienna, Austria, where he received his architectural training at the Technological Institute, Advanced Division for Building , and the of Fine Arts. He was certified as an architect in Vienna in 1929 and practiced in that city until 1938, when he moved to the United States and opened his first office in New York. He is a registered architect in many states and his firm now has offices in Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
Gruen's early work was in the fields of individual store design and residential projects. He is regarded as a pioneer in modem store design in work from small shops to large department stores. Gruen turned to shopping center design early as a challenging new field of architectural expression. He again won praise. As this firm expanded, the scope of his professional work grew to include such diverse projects as office buildings, private homes, public and tract housing projects, and the planning of complete communities including homes, apartment buildings, office buildings, shopping centers, civic buildings, schools, and recreational facilities. His unique achievements in these Helds, especially in the design of shopping centers, have led him in recent years into the field of city planning and urban redevelopment.
Gruen's work has been widely published in such professional as PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE and ARCHITECTURAL FORUM; in professional books such as SHOPS AND STORES and FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF TWENTIETH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE; in technical and trade such as LIGHTING, ENGINEERING NEWS RECORD, THE AMERICAN CITY, and in FORTUNE, BUSINESS WEEK, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, LIFE. THE NEW YORKER, COLLIER'S, LADIES HOME JOURNAL, McCALL'S. and HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW. He has spoken frequently before professional, technical, business, and planning groups and has written many articles for professional, trade, and business , and is presently working on two books. He has been selected for numerous awards for outstanding architectural work by the American Institute of Architects and other groups.
Of special interest is Gruen's comprehensive study of shopping center planning, written in collaboration with Lawrence P. Smith, which comprised the entire June 1952 issue of PROGRESSIVE ARCHITECTURE; and a traveling exhibition, "The Shopping Center of Tomorrow," created for the American Federation of Arts and shown in leading museums throughout the United States and abroad.
