Das Abbild, das uns die moderne westliche Stadt bietet, gleicht zunehmend kontrollierten Playscapes, die wie Themenparks und Shopping Malls zur Maximierung von Vergnugen und Profit optimiert sind. Privatisierung, themenspezifische Organisation, Branding und Uberwachung sind einige Merkmale dieser Montage, in der die Stadt zugleich Buhne und Erzahlung ist. "Entertainment Cities" verortet aktuelle Stadtformationen im Kontext urbaner Typologien - die Arkade, das Kaufhaus, der Strip, das Einkaufszentrum, der Themenpark, die Shopping Mall, das urbane Unterhaltungszentrum, das Brandscape, etc. - und analysiert diese Variationen des offentlichen Raumes als prekare Experimente in Sachen Privatisierung, Kommerzialisierung und Feminisierung. Das Buch richtet sich nicht nur an Experten, sondern an alle, die an der Entwicklung des urbanen Raumes interessiert sind."

Victor Gruen was one of the twentieth century’s most influential architects and is regarded as the father of the U.S. shopping mall. In spring 1979, less than a year before his death, he began reconstructing his life story. Now available in English for the first time, Shopping Town is the long overdue account of a man whose work fundamentally altered the course of city development.  Shopping Town opens in Vienna in 1938 with the Anschluss—the turning point in Gruen’s life—as he narrowly escaped the Nazi regime. A few years later, in the suburbs of postwar America, the Jewish refugee sought to reproduce the vitality of Vienna’s city center and invented the commercial apparatus now known as the shopping mall. Gruen’s Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota, was the first fully enclosed shopping center in America. He then translated the concept to economically neglected city centers, setting the path for pedestrian zones and fighting passionately for an urban ideal without compromise.  Highlighting Gruen’s sense of humor as well as reflections on the complex forces that sustained the postwar transformation of American cities, Shopping Town embeds Gruen’s experiences and perspectives in a wider social and political context while helping us understand his problematic place in American architectural culture. With afterwords by his son and daughter, Shopping Town closes with Anette Baldauf’s richly insightful essay on the legacy of Victor Gruen.

Victor Gruen was one of the twentieth century's most influential architects and is regarded as the father of the U.S. shopping mall. In spring 1979, less than a year before his death, he began reconstructing his life story. Now available in English for the first time, Shopping Town is the long overdue account of a man whose work fundamentally altered the course of city development. Shopping Town opens in Vienna in 1938 with the Anschluss-the turning point in Gruen's life-as he narrowly escaped the Nazi regime. A few years later, in the suburbs of postwar America, the Jewish refugee sought to reproduce the vitality of Vienna's city center and invented the commercial apparatus now known as the shopping mall. Gruen's Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota, was the first fully enclosed shopping center in America. He then translated the concept to economically neglected city centers, setting the path for pedestrian zones and fighting passionately for an urban ideal without compromise. Highlighting Gruen's sense of humor as well as reflections on the complex forces that sustained the postwar transformation of American cities, Shopping Town embeds Gruen's experiences and perspectives in a wider social and political context while helping us understand his problematic place in American architectural culture. With afterwords by his son and daughter, Shopping Town closes with Anette Baldauf's richly insightful essay on the legacy of Victor Gruen.

All across the world a uniform, homogeneous model of development, inspired by Los Angeles style urban sprawl--consisting of massive freeways, parking lots, shopping malls, and large-scale masterplanned communities with golf courses--is being stamped onto the earth's topography. This globalized model of architecture does not respect or adapt itself to the natural or cultural environment onto which it is implanted.

German American photographer Robert Harding Pittman began working on this project in Los Angeles ten years ago. Since then he has been photographing the spread of "L.A. style development" in Las Vegas, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Dubai, and South Korea.