- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Chronicle Books (26 Nov 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 081184272X
- ISBN-13: 978-0811842723
- Product Dimensions: 27.9 x 21.6 x 2.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 558,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
 Trade In this Item for up to £17.95
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £17.95, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The book that helped spark the retro craze for fifties architecture and introduced the term googie to the world is back! First published by Chronicle in 1986, this key survey of mid-century coffee shop and commercial architecture is still the standard work on the subject Googie Redux is a thoroughly revised and expanded edition of the classic and perennial top-selling book that rekindled the craze for 1950s coffee shop and commercial architecture. Long derided by critics as popular folly, the style - so named after John Lautner's eccentric Los Angeles coffee shop - was emblematic of Southern California's car-oriented architecture. By the time of the first edition's debut, these buildings were being demolished by the score. Alan Hess' 1985 Chronicle book did much not only to educate, legitimize, and popularize the style that characterized this endangered architecture, but it helped spark a resurgence of interest into midcentury modern design. Completely revised and significantly expanded in both text and images (some of them recently unearthed for this edition), this redesigned package features is still an entertaining and informative look at the rise, fall, and resurgence of the commercial architecture that changed the American landscape. Includes a greatly expanded guided tour of the iconic buildings in Southern California.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The Streamline Moderne style of the 1930s in Los Angeles served as a convincing dress rehearsal for the technological futurism of the 1950s. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The Streamline Moderne style of the 1930s in Los Angeles served as a convincing dress rehearsal for the technological futurism of the 1950s. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
A True Gem in My Library!
21 Oct 2004
Format: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!
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
Achingly Beautiful
24 Aug 2007
Amazon Verified Purchase
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
Great Book!
24 Oct 2009
Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Architecture > Planning
- Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Architecture > Reference
- Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Architecture > Types of Architecture > Public Buildings
- Books > Art, Architecture & Photography > Architecture > Types of Architecture > Residential Buildings > Houses & Flats
- Books > Home & Garden > Interior Design & Decoration > Styles & Decor
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Communication Studies > Media & Communication Industries > Press & Journalism
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Urban & Rural Planning
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
