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HISTORY Victor Gruen Associates was established in 1950 when Victor Gruen, two of his collaborators - R.L. Baumfeld and Karl Van Leuven - and Edgardo Contini, Consultant Engineer, joined as partners. They were motivated by a shared appreciation of the collaborative process, by complementary qualifications and experience, and by community of professional purpose. Around the nucleus of the first four Partners, Victor Gruen Associates began to grow. The modest initial staff of little more than a dozen architects and draftsmen at the first office at Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles soon developed into a much larger architectural-engineering organization, and moved its expanded activity to new quarters at Dohney Drive in Beverly Hills. Two of the most creative and capable members of the staff, Ben Southland and Herman Guttman, assumed the role of partners in 1956 and 1957 respectively; and after the eastern office was established in New York, Beda Zwicker who had been entrusted with its direction also became a Partner in 1963. By 1960 the combined staff had reached a total of 200 employees; in addition to the two permanent offices in Los Angeles and New York, Victor Gruen Associates established and operated, as required, project offices in Detroit, Chicago, Miami, Rochester, Minneapolis, Honolulu, San Fransisco and Teheran. Paralleling the physical expansion of the organization, the practice of Victor Gruen Associates expanded in volume and - more significantly - in scope. Commercial and residential projects continued to represent a major portion of its architectural practice; their scale and the emergence of new concepts presented challenges for which responses of unprecedented significance were developed - Northland in Detroit: the country's first Cluster Regional Shopping Center; Southdale in Minneapolis: the first air-conditioned enclosed mall; Midtown Plaza in Rochester. N.Y.: the first revitalization of a downtown commercial core. Concurrently with the design of specific projects, the organization under the leadership of Victor Gruen continued to explore new concepts and approaches for the solution of urban problems. The Fort Worth Plan (1956) presented the first systemic analysis solution for 6 the transformation of a typical American downtown: its principles have guided most plans for downtown revitalization of recent years, including the programs developed by Victor Gruen Associates for Fresno and San Bernardino, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Kalamazoo, Michigan. The study for a new city that would emerge from the framework of a proposed World's Fair (1959) established new criteria for organic metropolitan growth that have found their application in the master plans prepared by Victor Gruen Associates for New Towns Presently under development, such as Eldorado Hills, near Sacremento; Valencia, near Los Angeles; Litchfield near Phoenix To encourage a high level of individual motivation and creativity and to balance physical growth with a variety of challenges, Victor Gruen Associates has recently initiated a program of Sabbatical Grants to allow senior members to engage from time to time in research and study programs of their choice, as well as a program of research projects to be undertaken by the organization as a whole, independently of client request, to expand its field of participation and inquiry and to explore new approaches and solutions to environmental and architectural problems In 1966 Victor Gruen Associates moved to new headquarters on San Vincente Boulevard in Los Angeles. The same year, in anticipation of the emerging role of the Federal Government in the field of urban affairs, a coordinating office was opened in Washington, D.C. and in response to increasing demand for consultant services abroad, Victor Gruen International - an affiliated organization with headquarters in Vienna - was established. Today, the organization - 7 Partners, 6 Vice Presidents, 5 directors, 35 Associates, and a staff of over 200 - remains committed to the principles of collaborative creativity upon which it was founded. Its field expanded from architecture to environmental design, its competence enriched by the addition of specialized talent in related fields (from traffic engineering to government affairs, from graphics to economics), Victor Gruen Associated is prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow with the enthusiasm, imagination and competence that have supported its growth to the present. 7
