View allAll Photos Tagged Googie
4508 W Slauson Ave, Los Angeles, Windsor Hills neighborhood.
The building was designed by the architectural firm Armet & Davis for the Wich Stand drive-in/restaurant that opened in 1958. This example of Googie architecture was declared a historic landmark by the Los Angeles County in 1988. Today it is a restaurant called Simply Wholesome.
Johnie's Coffee Shop: former coffee shop and a well-known example of Googie architecture located on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The coffee shop was renamed "Bernie's Coffee Shop" in honor of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Back of postcard reads:
STUFT SHIRT
RESTAURANT
2241 West Coast Highway, Newport Beach, California
Nationally famous restaurant. Located on the bay at Newport. Combines the finest cuisine with the most dramatic bay view in Southern California.
Building (which, thankfully, still exists) dates to 1961
Architects: Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey
Closing soon, the Goody's coffee shop is leaving San Gabriel for El Monte by the end of the month. The fate of its landmark pylon sign is still up in the air.
865 East Las Tunas Drive
San Gabriel, CA 91775
Ah... nothing like starting your morning with an Armet & Davis architectural rendering (image appears courtesy ADN Architects). Here's San Jose's Bob's Big Boy, circa 1965 (note the Century dome theater in the background). Located at 449 South Winchester Boulevard, this Bob's Big Boy served up burgers and shakes from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. The building is currently home to the highly popular Flames Coffee Shop (where one slice of cake easily serves 3!). Thankfully, when the folks at Flames took over from Bob, they did little to alter the building's exterior. The sleek Bob's building, with its plate glass windows and convex roofline, is a well preserved, and exceedingly rare, example of the prototype that Armet & Davis created for Bob Wian in 1958. Currently AT RISK due to proposed redevelopment of the land it sits on. A classic example of Googie architecture. A local landmark. To the best of my knowledge, the ONLY 1958 Bob's prototype building left in the San Francisco Bay Area. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Please view on black and large:
bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=2556919753&size...
No American architect in the 20th century embraced more flamboyantly the flagrantly commercial aspect of design than did Morris Lapidus. Lapidus is most well know for his major hotel commissions, like the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau in Miami Beach as well as this building the Summit (now the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel New York City) at 51st and Lexington in New York. This was his first major New York project.
The Summit opened in 1961 and it was the first major nonresidential hotel built in New York in 30 years. The 51st Street frontage (which this image partially depicts) is quite grand in its rather stretched, open "S" curve and the facade patterning with windows tucked between protruding white-brick masonry elements larger than the windows is quite strong. This was a rather brave attempt to introduce some new geometry into midtown's rigid grid.
Historically, then, Lapidus probably deserves credit for laying the foundation for Lexington Avenue's eclectic mix of buildings and for trying to forge a new high-rise, here a mid-rise, aesthetic in midtown.
Lapidus designed 1,200 buildings, including 250 hotels worldwide. The architectural establishment, wedded to its doctrinaire expressions of International Modernism, tried to ignore his work, then characterized it as gaudy kitsch. This abusive critical reception culminated in a 1963 American Institute of Architects (AIA) meeting held at the Americana, where a variety of well-known architects insulted Lapidus to his face, in one of his own hotels.
A 1970 Architectural League exhibit in New York began the serious appraisal of his work. Lapidus tried to ignore the critical panning and was admired by his public response, but it had an effect on his career and reputation. He burned 50 years' worth of his drawings when he retired in 1984 and remained personally bitter about some aspects of his career.
Lapidus was rediscovered in the post-modernist era: his autobiography Too Much is Never Enough, 1996, takes a shot at modernist guru Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's dictum 'Less is more.' According to his German biographer Martina Duttmann, he has always been more highly regarded in Europe than in the U.S., where the comparable jet-set futurism is designated "Googie".
Melody Cleaners, 877 South Orange Avenue, Yuma, Arizona. A dry cleaners with an awesome Googie sign.
While in Titusville yesterday, I came across this Sabre 620 in an antique shop. It was marked $25 - which I knew was too much for it, but the guy came down to $18 - and reluctantly, and with hesitation I bought it. Even though I knew it was a bit more than what I would have wanted to pay for it. I was going to leave it, but something about its color, that seafoam green, made it irresistible.
As the day passed, it grew on me and kept doing so. Even though one of my favorite antique dealers who I showed it to after I bought it called it a "junk camera" it grew on me, which I knew was a good sign. Some of my favorite purchases ever were made with indecisiveness... only to grow and grow on me so much that they become some of my favorite things, which I guess partly comes from the satisfaction of taking a risk that, had one not taken, would have left one with regrets. I guess that's how it works out at least.
When I bought it, I could understand why somebody would call it a junk camera. It looked like this.
I spent the morning cleaning it. Windex, rubbing alcohol and some magic erasers (don't use these. They dull the finish.) and some shoe polish (don't tell nobody I did that. That was because of the magic erasers dulling the polish.) and it now looks how you see it here. And I love it to death. And it's seafoam green.
The title is a reference to a Populuxe film. The first of three parts - use the related videos section to see the rest of the film.
Back of postcard reads:
Hallmark House
Hollywood's Most Modern Motor Hotel
7023 Sunset, Hollywood, Calif.
Where elegance is reasonable - including luxuriously comfortable rooms and suites, heated pool, private patios, protected parking, phone and elevator service, free TV - and only blocks from the heart of Hollywood!
Published by Mellinger Studios, Pasadena, Calif.
Year Built: 1958
Today, it's a Day's Inn.
Ageing Googie motel sigh -- soon to be demolished -- likely by the end of the week to make way for a small office complex. Location State Street in Orem Utah on the boundry between Orem and Provo.
Sunset and an In-N-Out burger -- what could be better. Just a touch of Googie here. Huntington Beach, California
One of my favorite signs in San Jose.
1625 McKee Road
The shopping center dates to 1959. The "Food Bowl" portion of its flower-like Googie sign swings back and forth in the wind... probably motorized at one point in its life.
Copyright © 2013 by Craig Paup. All rights reserved.
Any use, printed or digital, in whole or edited, requires my written permission.
At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
In the warm California sun.
Taken with my 1958 Kodak pony.
I am now able to make my own prints in the color darkroom! Woot! And this is one of my first!
"Better fill up, only gas for a hundred miles in either direction..."
Petr-O-Rama is a rusty, grungy and junk-filled retro 60s-esque gas station somewhere deep on Route 66. Some of my favorite details include a vintage Coca-Cola vending machine, art deco radio and gas pump. I built the car (based on the 1960 Chevy Impala) to help further the dingy vibe... it is supposed to be broken down, hence its lack of tires and dark rusty brown color.
It was a fairly quick build I finished a while ago... I just didn't have time to photograph it! Despite my lack of posting, I have been busy as a beaver building big things, so stay tuned for those.
Mid-century modern house. In Palm Springs, California. Good "atomic ranch" example with a butterfly roofline.
"Better fill up, only gas for a hundred miles in either direction..."
Petr-O-Rama is a rusty, grungy and junk-filled retro 60s-esque gas station somewhere deep on Route 66. Some of my favorite details include a vintage Coca-Cola vending machine, art deco radio and gas pump. I built the car (based on the 1960 Chevy Impala) to help further the dingy vibe... it is supposed to be broken down, hence its lack of tires and dark rusty brown color.
It was a fairly quick build I finished a while ago... I just didn't have time to photograph it! Despite my lack of posting, I have been busy as a beaver building big things, so stay tuned for those.
The former City Auto Sale lot has been repurposed as the Ashby Flea Market, and its back walls have been newly graffiti'd in a more organized/authorized/invited way.
1930 Ashby Road
Merced, California
There's a funny little Jaber tribute noticeable on a brown freight car if you view the ultra-large original size.