Viktor Gruen formerly David Gruenbaum (1903-1980) was born and educated in Vienna. From 1918 to 1923, he studied surface building at the Hoehere Gewerbeschule, Vienna, and following his graduation he attended master classes of Peter Behrens at the Academy of Fine Arts. 1924 to 1933 he worked for Melcher & Steiner, architects and builders.
Gruen was active in the Bund – the Jewish Socialist movement. He, along with Ludwig Wagner and others, founded a Socialist Politisches Kabarett, in 1926. The group disbanded in 1933. He then became director of the Spielgruppe, a model for many cabarets in Vienna during the 1930s. In the field of architecture, from 1934 to 1938, he maintained an office in Vienna where he was recognized as an expert in surface building. He was commissioned to rebuild commercial buildings in Vienna and other projects in Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia.
In July 1938, when Nazi Germany took over Austria, Gruen immigrated with his family to the USA. He was employed as a designer and draftsman for Ivel Co. New York, where he designed General Motor’s pavilion for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
Gruen did not give up his love of theatre and in October 1938, he founded an antifascist cabaret named Refugee Artists Group (later Called Viennese Theater Group.) The performers, Austrian émigrés, included Herbert Berghof, Elisabeth Neumann and Manfred Inger.
In 1939, he and his wife Elsie Krummeck, established an office of design in New York. They later opened branches in a number of cities including Los Angeles and Chicago. Gruen specialized in interior design of shops, and department stores. In 1950, he was founder and director of a planning group ‘Victor Gruen Associates,’ which included architects, engineers, city planners and sociologists in Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C. He was registered as an architect/engineer in over twenty states. His projects included the planning and execution of urban development programs, shopping centers, business buildings. Among his city planning developments were the first regional shopping centers in Northland, Detroit (1954); Southdale, Minnesota (1956); Fort Worth, Texas; Welfare Island, New York He also developed revitalization plans for city centers in the USA and Europe. He founded the ‘Victor Gruen Center for Environmental Planning’, Los Angeles in 1968 and in 1973 established a sister organization in Vienna “Zentrum fur Umwelt Planung.”
Gruen was a member of the White House Committee for Environmental Problems,’ Washington D.C., advisor for the region of Paris, for City Government, Vienna, and for a general plan for a new university city near Louvain, Belgium. Gruen was also advisor to national, state and city governments in USA, Canada, Iran, France and Austria. In 1971 he redesigned the old city of Vienna.
Gruen was a member of ‘American Institute of Architects (1948); National Association Housing and Redevelopment Office; Yale Arts Association (charter member, executive committee); Urban Land Institute and other various professional organizations. He received a Fellowship in the American Institute of Architects; Architecture Prize, City of Vienna (1972), and other citations for significant contributions to social exhibitions in museums in US and in Europe.
Victor Gruen died in Vienna in 1980.