Public Spaces
Austrian-American Architect, Victor Gruen (1903 to 1980), noticed how much time Americans spend in cars, often with little interaction. People’s primary place was home, the second place was work, Gruen’s hoped to create a third place (based on sociologist Ray Oldenburg and Gruen’s ideas), particularly in suburban places. To give people a third place, Gruen came up with the concept of the mall. A centralized space - much like a European city centre.
In the lean 1930s when Gruen started thinking about a centralised space, he was also worried by how little money people spend. His solution to increase commerce were beautifully designed storefronts to entice people to spent more money and time. His plan was a mall that offered shops and other amenities surrounded by greenery with cars parked all around.
Pillars with a View (Craig Hodge, Columbian Company fonds, F8-S1-F16.2, City of Coquitlam Archives)
Gruen’s full vision for the mall was more than just shops. He imagined them as mixed-use facilities, with apartments, offices, medical centers, child-care facilities, libraries, and (since it was the 1950s) bomb shelters.
Gruen theorized about shopping malls long before he ever built one. Eventually in 1952, the owner of Dayton Company commissioned him to build the very first indoor, climate-controlled shopping center in Edina, Minnesota.
Aerial of Coquitlam Centre and Surrounding Area (Bob Dibble, Croton Studios Ltd., Enterprise Newspaper fonds, F6.761, City of Coquitlam Archives
