I was born in the 1960s, which means I am among the first generation to grow up with color TV. This also means I am also among the first Americans who are able to see their past in color. Or, at least, the urban landscape of our past. Maybe that’s why I love old TV shows like The Rockford Files—shows with a lot of exterior shots of working class cities and suburbs from back then. Once in a while, Rockford will race through Los Angeles and there, flashing by in the background, a McDonald’s from 1976 will appear. Or maybe a Woolworth’s or a Wash King. (Yes, I do realize that most people have never heard of Woolworth’s or Wash King.)
These were the places I would visit with my parents when I was a kid, and it’s kind of neat to see them again, if only on a TV screen. Seeing them today, forty years later, I am often struck by how different the architecture was back then, especially the fast-food joints and coffee shops, many of which were getting on even when Rockford was in his prime. These vintage buildings from the 50s and 60s often had weird, playful curves and tilted walls, all of it stitched together at crazy angles. I remember one restaurant in particular that my mom used to take me to every weekend. It had plastic booths nestled under a rocket-red awning with trippy lights hanging down. It looked like something straight out of The Jetsons.
And so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the style I was remembering was a recognized architectural phenomenon with a wonderful name: Googie.
Googie architecture (which is also known as Atomic Age) is characterized by swirls, arches, angles and other visual tropes reminiscent of science fiction and futuristic comics. Created in the 1950s, the style took its name from an L.A. coffee shop that represented one of its earliest examples. Other, more prestigious specimens include the LAX Theme Building, the Seattle Space Needle, and Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland.
Besides having crazy shapes, Googie was also colorful, with lots of pastel and ice-cream hues. Remember the original McDonald’s restaurants, with their giant golden arches and zig-zaggy windows? These marked the perfect summation of the idea.
As I researched the subject more, I began to wonder how it came about. Specifically, how did America’s vision of the future come to include all these swoops, swirls, and angles? I couldn’t find a definitive answer, and so I am guessing that it had something to do with the miracle substance of the period: plastic.
Back in the 1950s, plastic was the stuff of dreams. Strong, cheap, waterproof, and colorful, you could form any shape with it. And that’s just what architects did, extruding tons of the material into the fluid swirls and arcs that soon became synonymous with modernity.
Thus, Googie became the architectural equivalent of Pop Art: fun, democratic, and fast.
Of course, today we might call Googie by another, less playful name: retrofuturism. Like a lot of nerds, I have a fascination with all things retrofuturistic, including old sci-fi movies and poster art. But Googie is a different animal. For one thing, it was recognized in its own time as something strange and imaginative.
However, as you might expect, Googie was vilified by most architectural critics, perhaps because the style presented a fun, cheap alternative to the post-modern glass-and-steel boxes sprouting up in every major city. In truth, Googie never established itself as a bonafide architectural movement, with no major champions or notable structures (LAX and the Space Needle notwithstanding). Instead, Googie became little more than a long-lived fad, relegated to countless motels and fried-chicken shacks and car washes.
But man, what a cool fad. It was a time when technology was progressing quickly, with no end in sight. Man-made environments were sleek, plastic was cool, and climate change wasn’t even on the radar. A time when the average American didn’t have to make a Solomonic choice between the petro-fascism of the Far Right and the eco-apocalypticism of the Far Left.
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. Googie is, for me and many others, just another form of nostalgia.
But I really wish some of those swoops and swirls would come back. Maybe with 3D printing? I’m just sayin…
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. Googie is, for me and many others, just another form of nostalgia.
But I really wish some of those swoops and swirls would come back. Maybe with 3D printing? I’m just sayin…
Ash Clifton, Writer 