Customer Reviews

Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American Chain Restaurants

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Landgon's book is thoughtful, well-researched, and generally quite interesting. Though the topic is somewhat obscure, it does seem that chain restaurants manage to take on the trappings of all the trends in vernacular architecture (often in exaggerated form). The focus on restaurants makes for a good lens through which to see all these changes.

Langdon takes us back to the 1880s and the restaurants that served weary railroad travelers, through the colonial and art deco/moderne styles of the '20s and '30s, the bold modernism of the '50, to the environmental movement of the '70s and '80s, when every little Burger King suddenly acquired wooden shingles and a (pseudo-)mansard roof.

It's quite an interesting journey, and a good read for those who are interested.

'Orange Roofs, Golden Arches' is a rare gem of a book. I am fascinated with the 50's style 'googie' design, but I am also a fan of that weird 'Earthtones, brick red & orange' style which replaced it.

This book covers the history of resturaunt architecture fairly throughly, documenting chains changes and why the changes where made. This was eye opening to me, who bemoans 'Why are they always changing things?"

The ONLY negative is the ugly cover, but at this price that no big deal, just a shame because this book deserves better.

This book is nice trip down memory lane, even if you never experienced the resturaunt in question!

I've always been a big fan of the mid century style of architecture and furnishings since at least Junior High and ran into this book, and a similar book on the coffee shops called Googies at my local library in the early 1990's and thoroughly enjoyed them both and about 3 years ago, bought them, Googies is still in print the last I saw, but Orange Roofs and Golden Arches is not sadly. I found a very good condition copy via Amazon.

The book is a fascinating look at the evolution of the chain restaurant, primarily of the fast food and family/coffee shop type restaurants such as McDonalds, Wendy's, Denny's etc.

I at times do wish I had been around when the Googie type of architecture was popular since I love it's quirkiness and it's evocetive optimism of good times ahead. Sadly, as one reads through the book, by the mid 60's, the prevailing attitudes had begun to change and environmental concerns began to take place, toning down such gaudy structures to more fit into the landscape like they still do now.

The book is chock full of fabulous pictures of various restaurants, both in b/w and in color and one sees what an early Denny's looked like. Like the subcompact car that was basicaly a box on wheels and not much else for the most part to a car that is full of safety and creature comfort features to make them enjoyable alternatives to more lavishly equipped larger models, the chain restaurant did up it's looks by quite a bit, while retaining the factors that work so well for their type of restaurant, such as McDonalds and it's ilk became less stark in appearance but are now more nicely appointed, even if still uncomfortable for long periods, that kind of thing.

Overall, I found the book a great and entertaining read of how one of America's classic icons, the fast food etc chains evolved to where they are today, well, the mid 80's anyway.