Victor Gruen

Victor Gruen, born Viktor Grünbaum in Vienna, fled to the United States and became the architect most responsible for inventing the American shopping mall, designing Southdale Center in Minnesota as the country's first fully climate-controlled shopping complex. He intended malls as walkable town centers that would counter car-dependent sprawl, an ambition largely lost in how the format was actually built out, and he pursued the same pedestrian-first philosophy in urban revitalization plans for Fort Worth, Kalamazoo and Fresno.