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Googie architecture

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Googie, also known as populuxe or doo-wop, is a subdivision of futurist architecture, influenced by car culture and the Space Age and Atomic Age, originating from Southern California in the late 1940s and continuing approximately into the mid-1960s. With upswept roofs and, often, curvaceous, geometric shapes, and bold use of glass, steel and neon, it decorated many a motel, coffee house and bowling alley in the 1950s and 1960s. It epitomizes the spirit a generation demanded, looking excitedly upward towards a bright, technological and futuristic age.

The Googie or Populuxe style of architecture was characterized by space-age designs that depict motion, such as boomerangs, flying saucers, atoms and parabolas, and free-form designs such as "soft" parallelograms and the ubiquitous artist's-palette motif. These stylistic conventions reflected American society's emphasis on futuristic designs and fascination with Space Age themes.

As it became clear that the future would not look like The Jetsons, the style came to be timeless rather than futuristic. As with the art deco style of the 1930s, it remained undervalued until many of its finest examples had been destroyed. The style is related to and sometimes synonymous with the Raygun Gothic style as coined by writer William Gibson.

Googie

According to author Alan Hess in his book Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, the origin of the name Googie goes back to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed a coffee shop by the name of "Googie's", which had very distinctive architectural characteristics. This coffee shop was on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles but was demolished in the 1980s. According to Hess, the name Googie stuck as a rubric for the architectural style when Professor Douglass Haskell of Yale and architectural photographer Julius Shulman were driving through Los Angeles one day. Haskell insisted on stopping the car upon seeing Googie's, and proclaimed "This is Googie architecture." He made the name stick after an article he wrote appeared in a 1952 edition of House and Home magazine.

History

The identity of the first architect to practice in the style is often disputed, though Wayne McAllister is usually given credit for kick-starting the style with his 1949 Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Toluca Lake. Along with McAllister, the most prolific Googie architects were John Lautner, Douglas Honnold and the team of Louis Armet and Eldon Davis. Also instrumental in developing the style was designer Helen Liu Fong, a key member of the firm of Armet and Davis. Joining the firm in 1951, she created such iconic Googie interiors as those of the Johnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, the first Norm's Restaurant on Figueroa Street, and the Holiday Bowl on Crenshaw Boulevard.

America's preoccupation with space travel had a significant influence on the unique style of Googie architecture. Speculation about space travel had roots going as far back as 1920s science fiction. In the 1950s, space travel became a reality for the first time in history. In 1957, America's preoccupation grew into an obsession, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first human-made satellite to "break the surly bonds" of the Earth's atmosphere and "rise unshackled to the dark serene." The obsession intensified into a near mania when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1 carrying the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into Earth orbit in 1961. The Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations made competing with the Soviets for dominance in space a national priority of considerable urgency and importance. This marked the beginning of "The Space Race."

With space travel such an important part of the national zeitgeist, architects decided that they wanted to give people a little taste of the future in the here and now. Googie style signs usually have something with sharp and bold angles, which suggest the aerodynamic features of a rocket ship (illustration. left). Also, at the time, the unique architecture was a form of architectural braggadocio, as rockets were technological novelties at the time. Perhaps the most famous example of Googie's legacy is the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington (illustration, above right). A revealing comparison can be made between the Space Needle and the non-Googie Osaka Tower of 1966.

Influence

Googie heavily influenced retro-futurism. The somewhat cartoonish style is appropriately exemplified in the Jetsons cartoons, and the original Disneyland in Anaheim, California featured a Googie Tomorrowland (much of Tomorrowland still features Googie architecture, such as the Tomorrowland Terrace, Pizza Port, and Disneyland Railroad station). Three classic locations for Googie were Miami Beach, Florida, where secondary commercial structures took hints from the resort Baroque of Morris Lapidus and other hotel designers; the first phase of Las Vegas, Nevada; and Southern California, where Richard Neutra built a drive-in church in Garden Grove. Googie was also the inspiration for the set design style of The Incredibles.

The eye-catching style flourished in a carnival atmosphere along multi-lane highways, in motel architecture and above all in signage. Private clients were the backbone of Googie, though the Seattle Space Needle qualifies as "establishment Googie" (even though the Space Needle is, and always has been, privately owned).

Ultimately, the style fell out of favor and, over time, numerous examples of the Googie style have either fallen into disrepair or been destroyed completely - usually being replaced with buildings that lack the distinctive flashiness of the style.

Characteristics

Cantilevered structures, acute angles, illuminated plastic panelling, freeform boomerang and artist's palette shapes and cutouts, and tailfins on buildings marked Googie architecture, which was beneath contempt to the architects of Modernism, but found defenders in the post-Modern climate at the end of the 20th century. The common elements that generally distinguish Googie from other forms of architecture are:

Roofs sloping at an upward angle - This is the one particular element in which architects were really showing off, and also creating a unique structure. Many roofs of Googie style coffee shops, and other structures, have a roof that appear to be 2/3 of an inverted obtuse triangle. A great example of this is the famous, but now closed, Johnnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Starbursts - Starbursts are an ornament that goes hand in hand with the Googie style, showing its Space Age and whimsical influences. Perhaps the most notable example of the starburst appears on the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign, which has now become somewhat famous.

Architecture professor Douglas Haskel (mentioned below) perhaps described the Googie style best, saying that, "If it looks like a bird, it must be a geometric bird." Also, the buildings must appear in some cases to defy gravity, as Haskel noted that, "Whenever possible, the building must hang from the sky." Googie is not a style noted for its subtlety, as inclusion, rather than minimalism, is one of the central features.

The most famous Googie building may be the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) designed by James Langenheim of Pereira & Luckman and built in 1961.

One of the last remaining and largest Googie-styled drive-in restaurants, Johnie's Broiler in Downey, California, was partially demolished in 2007.

Further reading

Books are arranged in chronological order by year of publication:

  • Learning from Las Vegas, by Robert Venturi 1972 (ISBN 978-0262720069)
  • Orange Roofs, Golden Arches by Philip Langdon 1986
  • Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture by Alan Hess, 1986 (ISBN 978-0877013341)
  • LA Lost and Found: An Architectural History of Los Angeles by Sam Hall Kaplan 1987 Pages 145-155
  • Southern California in the 50s by Charles Phoenix 2001
  • Los Angeles Neon by Nathan Marsak and Nigel Cox 2002
  • Mimo: Miami Modern Revealed by Eric P. Nash and Randall C. Robinson, Jr. 2004
  • Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture by Alan Hess, 2004 (ISBN 081184272X)
  • The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister by Chris Nichols, 2007 (ISBN 978-1586856991)

See also

External links

Preservation groups working to save Googie architecture include



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Last updated on Wednesday February 20, 2008 at 22:03:49 PST (GMT -0800)
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