South County Macy’s closing marks end of local link to mall pioneer Victor Gruen

The closure of the Macy’s at South County Center heralds an end to an era—and a St. Louis link to one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Victor Gruen, a Viennese Jew who fled the Nazi takeover of Austria, landed in the United States, where he designed storefronts in New York before designing the first indoor shopping centers in suburbia. After Gruen’s success in early malls outside Minneapolis and Detroit, he was the logical choice for the May Department Stores Company. Gruen responded with a distinctive look for the mall’s anchor Famous-Barr: a soaring dome set in the middle of the mall’s complex, surely inspired by the baroque churches of his youth in Vienna. Just like in his other designs, the windows were set high up in the wall, which allowed ample light but prevented shoppers’ eyes from wandering away from the merchandise below. Ultimately, Gruen came to despise his creations—just as Frank Lloyd Wright had dismissed early versions of his own work in old age. Originally intended to be the nexus of larger planned communities, Gruen’s shopping malls were instead surrounded by parking lots, and his experiment gave way to suburban sprawl.