June 10, 2005

Googie architecture of the 1950s and '60s. Googie influenced retro-futurism (think The Jetsons) and Tiki/Aloha architecture. It's also known as Doo-Wop architecture. Classic examples are found predominantly in California and along Route 66, and preservation projects are in action to retain them.
posted by tracicle 19 years ago
  • I need new glasses. Or actually I think (I hope) I wasn't the only one that read Google? Didn't you? Even if you didn't, I need new glasses anyway.
  • Quick! Somebody alert Lileks!
  • Ah, you miss California, don't you Tracy?
  • Lileks is already a lert. A great big lert.
  • I think a lot of that stuff looks great, but looks better in California, under the warm bright blue sky, than it would transposed anywhere else in the world. It's bad when you get design made for places like California, and then they get transposed somewhere like....say....Toronto. (No, I didn't go to a university with a campus designed for somewhere in the SW US, with drifts of snow covering the attractive walks while winds howled between the clever "breezeways" between each building.)
  • Squid, I'd been meaning to post this for a while after fark (of all places) did a photoshop of a little gas station in Watsonville, just south of Santa Cruz. (It's technically art deco, but looking up the photo I found all this other cool stuff.) But yes, nowhere else in the world is as suited to googie as California. Tomorrowland, anyone?
  • An old friend of mine, a former Imagineer for Disneyland, was a big Googie fan. When I lived in L.A., he delighted in pointing out all the googie landmarks (which are numerous in that town).
  • Wow, i didn't know this school of architecture had a name. Thanks for that, tracicle. There's an old laundromat on Lisgar Street in Ottawa that used to have a big 1950's style sign outside. It was in a style i can now say is googie. I loved it especially because the laundromat closed years ago but they left the sign untouched, an urban orphan. sadly, a year ago, a kick-boxing studio took over and the sign is now covered over...
  • I love this style. We actually have a similarly styled building downtown here (Mr. Koko calls it The Jetsons building), which is my favorite building here (not too hard, since most of the structures here resemble concrete bunkers). I'll take a picture of it on the way home today to show yis. (((
  • that last link is to efforts in wildwood, n.j., which is in my neck o' the woods. i keep meaning to get up there! to actually stay in one of those would be very cool. and many are supposed to be dog-friendly.
  • If it's true that beauty ain't except in the eye of some beholder -- kitsch archecture now seems quaint and won't be left to fade or moulder.
  • yea bees!
  • All the motels out here still look like that, except the Hilton, a fling into California Gothic that looks a bit like Balmoral Castle on a bad hair day.
  • Haha! That's in Scotts Valley, where I lived. I forgot it was bought out by Hilton. Never stayed there but #2 and I were given the task of entertaining some Israeli clients and met them there for drinks. It's horrible inside.