A methodologically refreshing intervention that nevertheless manages to be entirely part of an ongoing historiographical moment. This is very much to its credit, and the novel perspective it offers is likely to prove enlightening to historians of modern architecture, of mass consumption, and most especially of Modern Europe.

EuropeNow

This valuable collection shows how civic and commercial agendas converged in the urban planning and architecture of new shopping centers throughout Europe in the decades after World War II. It makes a compelling case that these places helped shape a “pervasive modernity,” albeit one that could not, in itself, reconcile the values of collective societies with the juggernaut of consumer culture.

Joan Ockman, Senior Distinguished Fellow at the University Pennsylvania School of Design and Visiting Professor at Cornell University School of Architecture, USA

Shopping Towns Europe is a tour de force of pan-European research collaboration. It draws together scholarship from all over Europe to overturn the usual story of the American origins of the shopping mall, completely changing our understanding of this new urban building type.

Adrian Forty, Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK

The book fills a remarkable gap in the historiography of postwar European architecture… Avermaete and Gosseye have done a splendid job in bringing together scholars from all over Europe. A valuable book that enriches our understanding of a crucial period.

Hilde Heynen, Professor of Architectural Theory at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium