Victor Gruen’s Mall Legacy and Its Lessons for Emerging Market Developers

Victor Gruen was born in Austria, in 1903 and into a middle-class family, and received architectural training at the Technological Institute and Academy of Fine arts in Vienna. Upon graduating, he worked under Peter Behrens, a top German architect, until 1933 when he formed his own practice in Vienna. In this he focused on remodeling retail shops and apartments.

In 1938, fleeing WWII Europe, Gruen arrived in America “…with an architect’s degree, eight dollars, and no English.” He soon established himself, with the help of other German-speaking immigrants, and his first big break was to design retail stores in New York City. His designs where unlike any other on Fifth Avenue, and likely inspired by his time meandering the Arcades in Vienna.

The shop design innovations focused on the entrance ways and setting a “customer trap”. One notable example was a leather goods retailer storefront where Gruen placed six glass cases, spotlights, and faux marble and green corrugated glass on the ceilings. The aim of the "trap" was to divert window shoppers into buyers.

In 1941, Gruen moved to Los Angeles, and became a naturalized citizen in 1943. By 1951, Gruen founded Victor Gruen Associates, an international planning and architecture firm that eventually employed over 300 professionals and produced more than 200 major projects across the U.S. and abroad.

By the 1970's the firm had already designed over 50 shopping malls throughout America, including flagship developments like Northland Center (1954) and Southdale Center (1956). Many of these became templates for suburban retail worldwide. Malcolm Gladwell famously called Gruen “perhaps the most influential architect of the twentieth century,” and even Walt Disney cited him as a key inspiration for the original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow ("EPCOT") planned community concept within Disney World.

Vision of the Shopping Mall: Community-Centered Design in a Car-Centric Age

Victor Gruen’s architectural vision emerged during a time of rapid transformation in American life: post-WWII suburbanization, booming car ownership, and the rise of consumer culture. Between 1945 and 1970, the number of cars in the U.S. more than doubled, and over 83 million Americans moved to the suburbs. Gruen viewed this shift as creating social fragmentation, stripping communities of organic gathering places and public life.

His upbringing in pre-war Vienna, a city known for its pedestrian zones, corner cafes, and vibrant street life, deeply shaped his thinking. Viennese urban life offered “third places," spaces outside of home (first) and work (second) where people could interact informally. These included plazas, markets, beer gardens, and arcaded streets.

He wanted to bring European charm to Americas sprawling suburbs which he viewed as promoting social isolation, rather than community. Gruen believed America’s suburban sprawl was missing this vital social layer. He envisioned the shopping mall not merely as a commercial structure, but as the civic heart of the new suburb: a walkable, climate-controlled space where people could gather, stroll, socialize, and feel part of a shared experience.

His first major prototype, Northland Center in Southfield, Michigan (1954), was one million square feet and included 85 stores, pedestrian promenades, art installations, fountains, and green spaces. It had parking for 8,344 cars but placed pedestrians at the center of the design.

His most famous example, Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota (1956) was the first enclosed, climate-controlled mall in the U.S. It was intended to be just the beginning of a comprehensive, pedestrian-friendly urban district. Though the surrounding components were never built, Southdale pioneered a new retail typology that spread to over 1,500 malls across the U.S. by the late 1980s.

While today’s malls often symbolize consumerism and isolation, Gruen’s original concept was rooted in urban revitalization, social cohesion, and the recreation of European-style town life within sprawling American suburbs.

Watch: A 40-minute lecture by Victor Gruen outlining his philosophy of architecture and city planning.

The Gruen Effect: Architecture Meets Psychology

The Gruen Effect is a widely studied phenomenon in the fields of psychology, consumer behavior, and architectural design. Named after Victor Gruen, it describes how certain retail environments are intentionally designed to disorient shoppers, subtly manipulating their behavior to increase the likelihood of impulse purchases.

The theory suggests that by overwhelming the senses—through strategic lighting, layout, and display techniques—shoppers can be nudged off their original task and into an altered state of consumer receptivity. You may enter a store to buy toilet paper and leave with candles, throw pillows, and snacks you hadn’t planned on buying. This moment of sensory and psychological redirection is the core of the Gruen Effect.

Psychologists link the Gruen Effect to cognitive load theory and decision fatigue. The more stimuli and decisions a shopper encounters, the less likely they are to stick to their initial plan. In response, the brain takes shortcuts, resulting in impulse buying.

Retailers and building owners use:

• Ambient lighting and music to create emotional cues

• Scent marketing to trigger subconscious associations

• Product placement at eye level or end caps to guide attention

• Open spaces with sudden bottlenecks to slow movement and increase dwell time

Gruen himself did not coin or endorse the Gruen Effect, in fact, he criticized its misuse. In a 1978 speech, he lamented the manipulation of his mall designs for pure commercial gain, saying, “I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments.” Despite this, his foundational concepts continue to drive the architecture of modern retail.

IKEA: The Poster Child for the Gruen Effect

A prime real-world application of the Gruen Effect is IKEA, the global furniture giant. IKEA's maze-like store layout guides shoppers along a fixed path that winds through model rooms, displays, and product showcases. This design is no accident, it’s calculated to increase exposure time, extend store visits, and maximize product interactions.

• According to a 2011 study by Alan Penn at University College London, IKEA’s layout is intentionally confusing, resulting in an average in-store visit time of over 2.5 hours, more than double that of traditional retailers.

• A 2023 report by Statista noted that 74% of IKEA customers end up buying additional unplanned items.

• The more steps customers take, the more likely they are to purchase. Each section is filled with affordable “add-on” items, further encouraging spur-of-the-moment decisions.

This tactic is also used in shopping malls, supermarkets, and even airports. According to research published in The Journal of Consumer Research, impulse purchases account for 40–80% of total sales in certain retail categories.