Googie Restaurants: That 1950s Look

In the early 1950's, Douglas Haskell--a Yale professor of architecture--was being driven down Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. He passed an odd-looking coffee shop named the Googie, shouted to his driver, and stopped to study it. He realized he'd seen similar buildings in the area.

Haskell wrote an article about this new, crazy style of architecture, and named it Googie. The name stuck.

In the late 1940s, architects began designing coffee shops, bowling alleys, and other buildings to "open them up." Big plate glass windows, often framed by greenery, allowed people to see inside and out. No walls hid the kitchen from view. You could see it, just behind the counter. The interior walls were often faced with sheet rock, fake or real. The lighting fixtures and the signs look kinda space-age: different shapes, maybe a starburst or a atom drawing, bright colors, and NEON!

The famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign is pure Googie--even though it's not a building. You can read all about the sign here.

Many examples can be seen in Southern California, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as in Florida. They crop up occasionally in other states as well, but I don't know if the style ever made it overseas. I've never seen it in pictures of Europe.

Roofs are the most distinctive feature of Googie buildings, because they're all so different. They break all the rules. Look at the pictures on this page!

Googie roof slope, curve, point. . . they do anything they want.

Here are some websites devoted to Googie buildings:

• GoogieArt.com
• Googie Architecture Online
• Roadside Peek's Googie section
• A Photo-Galleryfrom Ron Saari

Other sites are tied into specific locations. The Los Angeles Conservancy, for example, lumps their Googie sites under "ModCom", but you can see some of the information they offer here.

So just google away and go exploring! (or, you can order the first book below from Amazon, if you really want the scoop. It's the best.)