The Story of Southdale Center: The World's First Enclosed Mall
SHOW DESCRIPTION: On October 8, 1956, 75,000 visitors flooded into Edina, Minnesota, to step through the glass doors of Southdale Center, the world’s very first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping mall. Conceived by Viennese refugee architect Victor Gruen and funded by department store rivals Dayton’s and Donaldson’s, Southdale was designed as a vibrant, walkable European town square built to insulate shoppers from Minnesota's brutal climate. Yet behind its soaring glass skylights lay an enduring tension between Gruen’s vision of a social, civic haven and a real estate machine built…
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