Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Alan Hess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2004

A thoroughly revised and significantly expanded edition of the popular 1980s original, Googie Redux is the authoritative history of the mid-20th century icon that ignited an architectural revolution: the coffee shop. Emblematic of Southern California car culture, stylized eateries and other roadside buildings built from the 1930s to the 1950s were dismissed as lowbrow stylistic folly in their heyday. Yet, as Alan Hess points out, in many ways they were the realization of modern architecture's grand promises. They were populist, employed new materials, and captured their purpose, place, and culture as vividly as any great architectural style. The influential original edition helped to spark a robust preservation movement and kick-started the reappreciation of mid-century architecture and design. This latest edition features extensive up-to-date research and dozens of rarely seen and newly found photographs. Googie Redux is the definitive document of a style born in California that has spread to all corners of the world.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alan Hess is architecture critic of the San Jose Mercury News and the author of numerous books, including Palm Springs Weekend (0-8118-2804-2) and Rancho Deluxe (0-8118-2420-9). He divides his time between Northern California and Michigan. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 222 pages
• ISBN-10: 081184272X
• ASIN: B000C4SL2S
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,087,148 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Gem in My Library!, October 21, 2004

By 

Dean Davis - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture (Paperback)

I can start off this review by stating pretty much any book Alan Hess writes will find its way to my shelf. Googie Redux is an incredible update to the original which was a masterpiece in itself.

The new photographs and line drawings are a very nice touch along with the updated text. Mr. Hess has proven himself again as the leading authority on this genre of architecture.

The insight and presentation of the information is what this architecture truly deserves. To ignore this style and consider it a joke is something that will bite us back in years to come. By then most of these places will be torn down and we'll be left with only this book as a resource. But, oh what a resource it is!

Now, if only Mr. Hess could fly over to the East Coast and write a book about the architecture in the seaside community of Wildwood, New Jersey. Then the circle would be complete. Many of these motels were built around the same time as the West Coast structures and would make for a very interesting comparison. Same style and philosophies, but with different architects, locales, and climates. Very interesting indeed.

In summary the equation is simple...great author plus great architecture equals doubly great book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Achingly Beautiful, August 24, 2007

By 

Thomas K. Seibold "Amish Suburbanite" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture (Paperback)

Googie was fading by the time I came along, but even in the remote area of the Midwest that I grew up in, its influence was felt. As a child, I didn't know what those slanted roofs and skewered-ball sign spires were called or where they came from, but I found their spacey, cartoonish vibe appealing (if increasingly worn and ill-maintained as the 70s wore on). This book, "Googie Redux," puts "ultramodern roadside architecture" in historical context and tells the stories of the commercial architects who invented Googie, primarily in Southern California. There's also an excellent section on automotive design of the postwar era, the ideas which inspired it, and its relation to Googie architecture. Fans of Americana, architecture, capitalism, and pop culture in general will adore this thick compendium of intelligent analysis and, in many cases, superb photographs documenting the glorious heyday and painful decline of this once-dominant style. Though Googie was shunned by the architectural establishment in its time, it is now given its due in this beautiful book. Buy it, read it, and catch a glimpse of an era in which roadside architecture was more than just the series of bland, inoffensive, lookalike boxes dispensing burgers, burritos, and coffee that we must suffer today. This book will feed your postwar fantasies and break your heart when you realize how homogenized commercial architecture has become.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, October 23, 2009

By 

Shatzi Crabtree (KS) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture (Paperback)

How I love Googie, that unmistakeable architecture of the 50s. Totally American, futuristic for its time, Googie still exists in some large and small cities. Think boomerangs and Formica, large windows, big wings on cars...If you remember this style or are interested in 50s style, you'll get a lot of use out of this book.