FILM SCREENING | PANEL DISCUSSION | THE GRUEN EFFECT: Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall – Cities, Architects and Commerce
The Gruen Effect: Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall
By Anette Baldauf and Katharina Weingartner
Documentary (A) 2009
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 discussion participants
Anette Baldauf, sociologist, DeSingel Art Campus, Vienna/Antwerp
Alan Bruton, architect, Parson’s The New School for Design, New York
Katharina Weingartner, filmmaker, Vienna.
Michael Gruen, lawyer, New York.
Chair: Katarina V. Posch, design historian, Pratt Institute, New York
Anette Baldauf is a sociologist whose research focuses on postindustrial city formations, popular culture, and social movements. Her book publications include Entertainment Cities: Unterhaltungskultur und Stadtentwicklung (Springer 2008) and Der Gruen Effekt (Montage 2006, with Dorit Margreiter). Documentary film projects include Der Gruen Effekt 2009 (with Katharina Weingartner), Knock Off: Die Rache am Logo 2003 (with Katharina Weingartner), and Remake Las Vegas 2001 (with Dorit Margreiter). She currently teaches at the DeSingel Art Campus in Antwerp.
Katharina Weingartner is a filmmaker, writer and radio producer who lives in Vienna and (sometimes) New York City. She creates doumentaries, TV and radio programs, books, and exhibitions about popular/urban culture and consumerism. too soon for sorry 2001, Knock Off: Revenge on the Logo 2004 (with Anette Baldauf) Sneaker Stories 2007, The Gruen Effect 2010 (with Anette Baldauf).
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