Originating in Southern California in the late 1940s and continuing approximately into the mid-1960s, the types of buildings that were most frequently designed in a Googie style were motels, coffee houses and bowling alleys. The academic vein of the school became widely-known as the Mid-Century modern movement, and some of those more notable variations reflect elements of the populuxe asthetic, as in Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center.

Features of Googie include upswept roofs, curvaceous, geometric shapes, and bold use of glass, steel and neon. Googie was also 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 with the art deco style of the 1930s, Googie became undervalued as time passed, and many buildings built in this style have been destroyed.

The origin of the name Googie goes back to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed the coffee shop Googie’s, which had very distinctive architectural characteristics. Googie’s was located at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles but was demolished in the 1980s. The name Googie stuck as a rubric for the architectural style when Professor Douglas 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.

Googie Architecture developed from the futuristic architecture of Streamline Moderne, but at the same time rejected it. While 1930s architecture called for simplicity, Googie embraced excess. Hess argues that the reason for this was that vision of the future of the 1930s was obsolete by 1950 and thus the architecture evolved along with it. During the 1930s, trains and zephyrs had been on the cutting edge of technology, and Streamline Moderne mimicked their smooth simplistic aerodynamic exteriors.

This simplicity may have reflected the depression era’s forced frugality. 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). Googie was also the inspiration for the set design style of The Incredibles.

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, Johnie’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. The ornamental design is in the form of, as Hess writes, "a high-energy explosion." This shape is born of the 1950s fascination with the future and atomic age. It’s also an example of non-utilitarian design as the star shape has no actual function but merely serves as a design element.

Links

• Lotta Living, an online Community for fans of Googie architecture (and the message board for the LAC Modern Committee and Recent Past PReservation Network
• Googie Architecture Online
• Roadside Peek: Googie Central
• Category at Open Directory Project
• Googie styles in Los Angeles, California
• Synthetrix Photos Of The Forgotten – Documenting Googie style motels surrounding Disneyland in Anaheim, California
• Seattle Googie – Documenting Googie architecture in Seattle, WA
• Wildwood Doo Wop – Documenting "Doo Wop" (Googie) architecture in Wildwood, NJ
• Googie style Satellite Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Preservation groups working to save Googie architecture include

• Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee
• Palm Springs Modern Committee
• Doo Wop Preservation League
• Recent Past Preservation Network
• DOCOMOMO, Dutch-founded DOcumentation and COnservation of buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the MOdern MOvement
• Los Angeles Conservancy home
• John Lautner Foundation, Googie architect site

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