Redeeming the shopping center. Victor Gruen’s ideal cellular metropolis and Louvain-la-Neuve

Journal title TERRITORIO
Author/s Leonardo Zuccaro Marchi
Publishing Year 2021 Issue 2021/96 Language English
Pages 15 P. 159-173 File size 1499 KB
DOI 10.3280/TR2021-096015
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The ‘mall maker’ Victor Gruen is well known as the architect who played a dominant role in the design and global proliferation of the shopping mall. While many recent publications already highlighted and re-evaluated the architectural importance of Gruen’s shopping center, the urban ideal/utopian projects proposed by Gruen have not been considered in depth thus far. Gruen mixed his design principles for shopping centers with ecological interpretations, proposing the Cellular Metropolis as a new urban utopia. This paper aims to shed light on Gruen’s urban ideas, from his critical idea of the ecological-commercial realm to the study of radical commercial hybridizations, which are still relevant lessons for the design of our socio-spatial contemporary condition. In particular, the article focuses on the case study of Louvain-la-Neuve to ground such ideas into a real site.

Keywords: Victor Gruen; cellular metropolis; Louvainla- Neuve

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Leonardo Zuccaro Marchi, Redeeming the shopping center. Victor Gruen’s ideal cellular metropolis and Louvain-la-Neuve in "TERRITORIO" 96/2021, pp 159-173, DOI: 10.3280/TR2021-096015