Victor Gruen was an Austrian-born commercial architect who emigrated to the United States. He is best known as the designer of Southdale mall, and the father of the modern American shopping mall.

Gruen was born an Austrian Jew. He grew up in Vienna, studying architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. A committed socialist, he performed satirical cabaret theatre. When Germany took over Austria in 1938 he emigrated to the United States. He landed "with an architect's degree, eight dollars, and no English."

External link

• The New Yorker on Gruen (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040315fa_fact1)