[vimeo 20662195 700 400]

“The Gruen Effect: Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall”
By Anette Baldauf and Katharina Weingartner
Documentary (A) 2009, runtime 50 min
Co-production: pooldoks – ORF/RTR/FFW

In The Gruen Effect, an architect’s life, work, and critical humor become a means to make sense of the cities we live in today. The Viennese architect Victor Gruen is considered the father of the shopping mall. His ideas about urban planning, both influential and abused, have led to cities that serve the new gods of consumption. By tracing Gruen’s path from prewar Vienna to 1950s’ America and back to Europe in 1968, the documentary explores the themes and mistranslations that have come to define urban life.

Panel:
Anette Baldauf, sociologist, DeSingel Art Campus, Vienna/Antwerp
Alan Bruton, architect, Parson’s The New School for Design, New York
Adriana Young, urban lifestyle researcher and professor, Parsons School of Design and the Graduate Program for International Affairs at The New School
Katharina Weingartner, filmmaker, Vienna.

The Glass Corner, Room 206 25 East 13th Street

3-4:30 pm