The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964.
First edition. Signed by Victor Gruen on front free endpaper, inscribed to former owner in the year of publication. 368 pp. Bound in publisher's green cloth blue and gilt stamping. Fine in a Very Good dust jacket with wear along top edge, two tiny chips, crease to back panel, unclipped. Uncommon signed. The best-known book by the prolific Austrian-born architect known as the Father of the Shopping Mall, a title he came to loathe. Now that malls are becoming a memory of the 20th century many younger people have only experienced in movies and television, the nostalgia for them has increased rapidly as of late, and perhaps Gruen's ideas may inspire readers once again in the 21st century. His pedestrian-centric designs inspired Disney's EPCOT planned community, which became a theme park. Profusely illustrated with a color fold-out chart, uncommon in its first printing.
Price: $2,000.00