Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture (Paperback)

by Alan Hess (Author) "The Streamline Moderne style of the 1930s in Los Angeles served as a convincing dress rehearsal for the technological futurism of the 1950s..." (more)
Key Phrases: electrographic architecture, sign pylon, roadside design, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Coffee Shop Modern (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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.

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (October 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081184272X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811842723
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #161,523 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 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)

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!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Thomas K. Seibold "amishurbanite" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, December 21, 2008

By	John M. Barone "Karen B" (Kalamazoo, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A wonderful reference about Googie architecture, these landmarks are disappearing fast...great book and very well done!