ready or nuts here i am

feeling sick and my arts a mess but heres this thing

An Introduction to Googie, SoCal’s Signature Architectural Style

Bianca Barragan | Curbed LA

This week, Los Angeles erupted in public outcry against the possibility that the iconic La Cienega Norms restaurant might be razed (a demolition permit was issued but there are no immediate plans for the site), and the drama has brought the disappearing Googie architectural style into the spotlight. While Southern California is rich in architectural variation, you could make a strong argument that Googie—exemplifying the collision of car culture and the Jet Age futurism that bloomed after World War II—is the signature style of the region. Cantilevered roofs, starbursts, and hard angles are all themes in Googie architecture, notes ArchDaily, and can be seen in the building that gave the style its name: a coffee shop called Googies in West Hollywood, designed by the great Organic Modernist John Lautner. House and Homearchitecture critic Douglas Haskell coined the term in 1952 as a pejorative (he thought Googie was tacky).

Googie captured the post-WWII high that made people feel that the future was now and they were living in it, but it reflected a very 1950s and ‘60s view of what “the future” meant. Googie eventually became a national phenomenon (showing up most prominently on The Jetsons), but it got its start in Southern California because of the booming Mid-Century car culture.

As driving became the dominant mode of transportation in SoCal after WWII, business owners realized pretty quickly that people in cars miss a lot. Googie designs were geared toward catching drivers’ eyes and getting them to slow down and come in. (McDonald’s loved Googie.) Architectural historian Alan Hess has written extensively on the bold, spacey style, and spoke at the Cultural Heritage Commission meeting this week where the La Cienega Norms was nominated for Historic-Cultural Monument status. “One of the key things about Googie architecture was that it wasn’t custom houses for wealthy people — it was for coffee shops, gas stations, car washes, banks… the average buildings of everyday life that people of that period used and lived in. And it brought that spirit of the modern age to their daily lives,” Hesstold Smithsonian in a 2012 interview.

Googies went out of business decades ago, and 30 years ago, the LA Times reported that “In 1986, much of this architectural genre … is slowly succumbing to remodeling or has been relegated to the Googie graveyard.” A little more distance has given us a better appreciation for Googie, but a lot has already been lost and, as the Norms battle shows, there’s probably a lot more demolition in the future (even if Norms itself is saved).

MOTHERFUCKING GOOGIE HELL YESS

This is going to be great.

NEXT WEEK!!!  PREPARE TO BE BTFO!!!

HYPE

IM MORE EXCITED THAN EVER

HOLY FUCK IM EXCITED