A. Alfred Taubman is a wealthy developer and the namesake of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning (TCAUP), the Taubman Health Sciences Library, and the Taubman Health Care Center at the University of Michigan. Students of the urban planning school are perennially snickering at the fact that their college is named after an architecture student who never graduated, but instead made a fortune developing shopping malls - a land use that planning students almost unanimously disdain. Typically, this observation will be followed with the fact that Taubman was convicted in 2002 of a price-fixing conspiracy while the owner of the Sotheby's auction house. There was discussion in the university community at that time whether Taubman's name should be removed from various facilities - and, if so, whether it would have to return the money he had donated (approximately $60 million to TCAUP alone) - but no action was taken.

Area malls developed by Taubman include the original incarnation of Arborland and Novi's Twelve Oaks Mall.

More information

books

  • Mason, Christopher. The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby's-Christie's Auction House Scandal. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 2004. ISBN 9780-399150937
  • Taubman, A. Alfred. Threshold Resistance: The Extraordinary Career of a Luxury Retailing Pioneer. New York: Collins. 2007 ISBN 978-0061235375
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