Wednesday, January 19, 2022 – Victor David Gruen (July 18, 1903 – February 14, 1980) was an architect. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, he moved to America in 1941 but returned to Vienna in 1968. His claim to fame is that he is the father of the shopping mall.
The first mall he built was an outdoor mall near Detroit in 1954. The first indoor mall was an 800,000 square-foot facility built in Edina, Minnesota. Known as Southdale Center, it is the oldest climate-controlled mall in the United States. Several additions through the years increased the square footage to 1,297,608 square feet.
Victor’s desire was to reduce the amount of driving a person would have to do by putting the stores together in one place. While his motives were well intentioned, those who followed him in designing malls had different ideas.
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get turned around in a mall? Then comes the search for the escalator. Seems you can always find the down escalator when you are wanting to go up and vice versa. And the chances that you stayed longer than you intended and exited the mall with more than you intended to purchase is no accident. It’s called The Gruen Transfer or Gruen Effect.
The Gruen Transfer “is a psychological phenomenon the moment when consumers enter a shopping mall or store and, surrounded by an intentionally confusing layout, lose track of their original intentions, making them more susceptible to making impulse buys.”1 Gruen disavowed any connection with this and was angered that his name was attached to the principle. This was not his intent for building shopping malls.
I can’t blame Gruen for being angry. I have to say that I get a bit irritated and fatigued every time I go into Glenbrook Square Mall in Ft. Wayne. Perhaps if I went more often (oh, the horror! What am I saying?!? No thank you!), I wouldn’t get so turned around. Then, there are all the kiosks and the unique items. No wonder people overspend in the mall.
To think that someone has engaged us in a psychological warfare, purposefully trying to entrap and deceive us is reprehensible. But spiritual deception is exponentially worse.
2 Peter 2:1-3 says, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. (2) And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. (3) And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”
False teachers don’t reveal their agenda. It’s all about deception. And just focus on the words I’ve put in bold print. Those words alone ought to inflame our sense or right and wrong. Is it any wonder that John warned in 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
While we may get turned around in a mall, there is no reason to get turned around spiritually. God’s truth exposes the error and we must cling tenaciously to every syllable inspired by the Lord in His Word.
1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gruen_transfer
