Customer Reviews

Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

You could create a college course on American Mid-Century Architecture around this book. Alan Hess authoritatively instills an exceptional knowledge and appreciation of all things Googie. I can't help but think if more people read this book, there would be much more of an appreciation for the architectual and cultural movement from the mid part of the last century. The book bursts with colorful descriptions and photos of not only exteriors of diners such as early Dennys, Big Boy and of course Googie restaurants, but also shows interiors and architectural layouts. The book focuses not only on diners, but signs, car washes, bowling alleys, fast food stands, mostly in southern California where the movement reached its zenith. Reading this book will give you a deeper understanding for an architectural style which many still too easily dismiss. There is great value in Googie, and much to learn from Googie Redux.

Book more for an architect and a historian then for a person who wants to enjoy and have fun looking at full scale color pictures.
I'd like to see this book done over with only caption writing and full size pictures. Too much info.

Please do not be mislead by the one critical review by another customer in this section! The pictures are just fine, in fact there are numerous half & full-page photos...and I've seen double pages that were practically all illustration with almost no text. You don't even have to take my word - just click on the Amazon feature that says "Click To Look Inside!", & see for yourself! I did purchase a different(& much smaller) book by Mr. Hess entitled "Googie" which made use of a few pictures seen in this book, but they were only about a third the size of the illustrations in this book "Googie Redux". This book is a fairly large size paperback, excellent quality...thick, heavy paper cover(hinged to prevent creasing, & pages are printed on nice quality paper. The so-called "tech writing of this book is actually mostly a history of this building style as it took place in the greater Los Angeles area. But for some people, anything that is not written in a "comic book format" qualifies as tech! That one misleading review caused me to delay this purchase, but now that it's here, I have absolutely NO regrets!!