Suburban Planning and Shopping Centres

The evolution of the postwar Canadian suburbs placed shopping centres at the heart of suburban life, highlighting shifts in community needs and values. After the Second World War, increased private affluence altered the course of urban development.[1] As more Canadian families moved to the suburbs, these areas, designed for car access, expanded to offer more space and increased privacy in their homes. In Ontario, suburban shopping centres responded to these developments and to specific local needs, such as the physical environment. However, all centred around the car, which was the main form of family transportation.

Architectural historian Marie-Josée Therrien, in discussing how these commercial areas met suburban community needs, quotes Lizabeth Cohen, an academic and professor of American Studies.[2] Cohen suggests that suburban shopping centres provided “the ideal [commercial] core for a settlement that grew by adding residential nodes off of major roadways rather than the concentric rings from downtown, as in cities and earlier suburban communities.”[3] Despite this, no two suburban shopping centres were the same. Although they were often criticized for lacking aesthetic value, eroding public space, or mirroring consumer society, these spaces nonetheless held more meaning.[4] As Therrien notes, they were "welcome suburban constructions that received the support of the first postwar generation of planners."[5] 

One planner earned distinction as the father of American suburban shopping centres. Victor Gruen, an architect from Vienna, Austria, transformed suburban development and modern commercial spaces in America.[6] Arriving in late 1930s New York City as a Jewish refugee, Gruen quickly established himself as a European-trained architect with previous success in store design.[7] Gruen drew from his background, channelling difficult personal experiences into his work. He often referenced his social activities in interwar Vienna, his challenges with political organizing under fascism, and his management of a theatre troupe for exiled Jewish people in America.[8]

Gruen, shaped by personal history, argued that suburban shopping centres could serve as community gathering spaces where democratic, utopian ideals could flourish within a capitalist society.[9] For Gruen, the suburban shopping centre’s main purpose was to serve as a social and civic nucleus that met citizens’ physical and emotional needs, intensified by Cold War anxieties. Gruen introduced a holistic, demographic-based philosophy to shopping centre design, advocating for spaces that echoed the vibrancy of European squares and markets. He brought these historical ideals to life when planning the 1956 Southdale Centre, a compact yet large-scale shopping centre in Edina, Minnesota; here, he drew on the concept of a densely populated yet lively European communal space.[10]

Though shopping centres and postwar suburbs were American innovations, their influence, including Gruen’s work, quickly spread across North America.[11] One prominent example from Gruen’s portfolio of suburban shopping centres is the 1964 Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto, Ontario.[12] At Yorkdale, shoppers enjoyed a large, but enclosed, climate-controlled space near a new highway, arranged in an L shape. Yorkdale Shopping Centre featured rest benches, indoor greenery, and storefront facades designed to engage shoppers. The centre debuted to immediate success. However, as shopping centres continued to spread across Canadian suburban municipalities, new tensions developed between architectural ideals and economic imperatives.[13]

As a result, critical responses to postwar shopping centres grew, highlighting conflicts between commercial success and thoughtful architecture.[14] Despite these challenges, Gruen put his faith in the suburban shopping centre, recognizing the participatory role of architects and planners in facilitating good business through good design. Gruen’s vision extended beyond economic planning: he prioritized shopper comfort, pedestrian accessibility, and the creation of a communal core, arguing that shopping centres should serve as the true heart of suburban life. His approach set the postwar standard for suburban shopping centre planning and influenced Canadian design for decades.[15] 

[1] Marie-Josée Therrien, “Shopping Malls in Post-war Ontario,” Docomomo Journal 38 (2008): 39-40, https://doi.org/10.52200/docomomo.38. 

[2] Therrien, “Shopping Malls in Post-war Ontario,” 39.

[3] Therrien, “Shopping Malls in Post-war Ontario,” 39.

[4] Marie- Josée Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada 36, no. 2 (2011): 13, http://hdl.handle.net/10222/65285. 

[5] Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” 14.

[6] James Powell, “Temples of Commerce,” The Historical Society of Ottawa, accessed October 17, 2025. https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/publications/ottawa-stories/important-public-and-private-buildings-in-the-city/temples-of-commerce. 

[7] Timothy Mennel, “Victor Gruen and the Construction of Cold War Utopias,” Journal of Planning History 3, no. 2 (2004): 116, 118, https://doi.org/10.1177/1538513204264755. 

[8] Joseph Malherek, “Victor Gruen’s Retail Therapy: Exiled Jewish Communities and the Invention of American Shopping Malls as a Postwar Ideal,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 61 (2016): 219-221, https://doi.org/10.1093/leobaeck/ybw001. 

[9] Mennel, “Victor Gruen and the Construction of Cold War Utopias,” 116-150.

[10] Mennel, “Victor Gruen and the Construction of Cold War Utopias,” 131.

[11] Harold Kalman, “Modern Architecture and Beyond,” in A History of Canadian Architecture (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1994), 833-834.

[12] Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” 13-26.

[13] Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” 17.

[14] Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” 16-22.

[15] Therrien, “Changing Trends in the Canadian ‘Mallscape’ of the 1950s and 1960s,” 16.