WEBVTT - Googie: The Architecture of the Space Age 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.520 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.200 and there's Chuck and Jerry's hanging out and this is 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:24.360 Stuff you Should Know. Are continuing Architecture slash Design Suite Surprising. Yeah, 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.720 it's surprisingly interesting stuff. Huh. Yeah. And this one, um, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:30.880 I mean listen however you listen, but if you have 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.720 a choice, I really would urge you to listen to 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:39.600 this when you can look at pictures of things. Uh, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:44.080 this one above many many episodes, requires you to look 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.599 at this stuff as you're listening. Ideally, Yeah, and so 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.479 if you can do that, do that, yeah, because we're 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.600 gonna be mentioning specific buildings that you could go check 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.840 out and be like, oh, this is what they're talking about. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:57.840 We're gonna do our best, but we're going to be 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:00.760 describing structures. And it's just way easier to look at 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:05.119 the structure. You know, it's got a swoopy pointy thing. Yeah, 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.400 that's basically it. Olivia was kind of enough to insert 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.640 hyperlinks into what she sent us. I mean it's super easy. 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.240 I didn't even have to google the googie and that 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.240 is what we're talking about. It's not a type of everybody. 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.440 It's Googy. It's a kind of architecture G O O, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.720 G I E UM, And it is basically the architecture 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:30.520 that you think of when you think of the nineteen fifties, 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.679 mid fifties to the very early sixties in America, well, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.520 the fifties when they were thinking of the nineties exactly, 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.000 that's a really good way that might look like. Yeah, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.040 and they were way way off, but I mean, how 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.360 great would the nineties have been if it looked like 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:49.120 what they thought it was going to look like in 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.040 the fifties. I think it would have been pretty cool. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.720 Because I am personally a really big fan of Googy architecture. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.560 It's nothing like I don't go tour the buildings or 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.400 anything like that. In fact, there's one in Georgia, and 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:03.320 I looked up where that town is and I'm like, no, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.080 it's not worth the drive, but I do like looking 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.720 at pictures of them. I might That bank is three 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.000 and a half hours from my house, and I want 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.440 to open up an account there just so I can 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:17.960 drive down to that amazing building in the middle of 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.440 nowhere southeast Georgia. It is really the middle it's not 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.440 near anything, nothing nowhere around it, but it does have 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.600 a really fine example of Googy architecture, which we'll get to, 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.160 which we should probably define beyond it's the architecture that 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.359 you think of when you think of the fifties or sixties, right, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:37.320 And before we define it, I just want to say 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.880 that my love affair with Googie started out when I 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:46.000 was a kid. When I first honestly, when I first 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.720 went to Tomorrowland to Disney World, and then when I 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.760 started watching the Jetsons and being in Georgia, I didn't 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.720 see any examples of Googy really growing up UM, but 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.880 took my first trip to l l in nineteen eighty eight, 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.240 I saw a bunch of Googy. I was like, I 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:10.760 love this stuff. And then in the n I took 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:12.440 my first trip to New York where I met my 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:17.160 friend Bob, and this is was not exterior architecture, but 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.720 this was that early to mid nineties UM sort of design, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.959 like kind of space age bachelor pad design movement that's 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.760 called Populux. Yeah, and that's sort of akin to Googie. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.600 And Bob had his stuff like that, and I thought 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.079 it was so cool, and he told me about googie. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:35.960 And that's the first time I had heard that word 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.640 was in That's Hilarious. I heard the word the first time, 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.720 like this month. I think, well, really well, I mean 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:45.880 you don't. You don't hear it a lot, but I 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.080 think people that know it like to tell other people 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.120 and name it. And Bob was one of those people 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.000 because I remember when Google came along when I was 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.160 living in l A. And I was like, like the 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.600 architecture and everyone went, huh So, anyway, that's just a 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:04.920 long personal preamble. Uh should we define it? I like it. Yeah, 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.360 let's define it, chuck, have at it, all right. So 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.400 this was this came about post World War two, and 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:14.560 I love how Livia put this. It was influenced by 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.560 the techno optimism of that era, which was the thing. 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.200 It was like, Hey, this is it was like Tomorrowland, 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:23.720 this is what the future is going to be like. 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.480 And you know, they're just gonna have like cool shapes 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.320 and things are gonna look like rocket ships and cars 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.720 can have these big fins and look like spaceships. And 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.040 we love neon lights and we love these gentle pas stels. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:42.720 And it was kind of a a populous movement and 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:44.919 that it wasn't like just meant for the rich. No, 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.280 it wasn't for the rich. And as a matter of fact, 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.600 one of the other big definitions of it is it 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.479 was a commercial movement. So like you didn't really see 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.120 anybody's house constructed in Googie, but you would see like 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.000 a dry cleaner or a bowling alley, or a coffee 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.680 shop that was a big one, or a diner. Um. 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.000 So these were places that like any American could go 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.600 to and did. So it was it was really fun, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:15.960 eye popping, bright colored space age design and architecture for 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.120 the everyday person. And that's definitely one of the things 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.760 that made it so lovable. But it's also conversely one 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.159 of the things that made like architecture critics and like 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:29.920 you know, the legitimate I'm making square scare quotes architects 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:33.920 hate it because it was populist in nature. Yeah, for sure. 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:39.000 UM it emerged in largely state in California. It did. 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.039 You know, we'll talk about where it did branch out 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.800 here and there across the US, but it's really a 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.200 California thing and really a southern California thing, and California 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:51.240 at the time really UM did sort of represent the 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.200 future in a lot of ways. Post World War Two. 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.279 It was you know, it was the far West, and 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.560 it was I think a city where people moved to 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.920 from the East that saw possibilities in California, the land 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.159 of sunshine, the land of the future. And uh, the 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.280 the whole idea of this commercial part of it was 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.400 let's design, let's say a gas station that will really 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.920 stand out if you're it was a car culture, you know, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.080 after World War Two, and let's design something that can 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.440 really be noticed when you're speeding down the highway. Yeah, 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.440 that was a really big driving force for Googie. Like 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.880 if you, um, if you look at a Googie building, 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.799 you see it like a mile away or many miles 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.400 away because of the bright colors, because of the weird angles. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.400 It really is designed to stand out from its surroundings. 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.880 A lot of architecture is designed to um complement, blend, 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.440 kind of be seamless with its surroundings, whether that's nature 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.840 or existing buildings. Googie did not take that into account 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.240 at all and actually went the opposite way. And one 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.640 of the big reasons was because in California as a 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.040 car culture, to get people's attention as they're speeding past 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.279 you kind of have to use those design elements. And 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.120 that was that was basically why Googy came along. That's right. 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.760 I mentioned the Jetsons and that wasn't just ingest uh, 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.680 that was a real thing. It was inspired by things 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.040 like the Jetsons. If you look at the original Hanna 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.400 Barbera studio building and on Kawanga and West Hollywood, it 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.880 was a Googie building. Uh. It was sort of Googie 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.320 meets Art Deco, which Googie has a little bit of 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.600 its roots in Art Deco in some ways. And also 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.560 you know, I guess we should talk about some other 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.640 uh kinds of architecture that it sort of sprang from. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.440 Art Deco was one and then one that is also 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:45.440 super cool. It's called streamline modern, and that is if 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.680 you look up any streamline modern building, you might think 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.120 you're looking at in an ocean liner or something. There 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:57.600 are no squared corners on these buildings. Like everything which 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.120 is also very Art Deco has these beautiful round did edges, yeah, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.280 which is really neat. There's also usually structures that kind 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.720 of suggest like an ocean liners, smoke stacks or something. Um. 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.320 Sometimes they even put portholes in the buildings like There 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.960 was a Coca Cola bottling plant that was streamline modern 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.320 um in the thirties I think maybe forties in l A. 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:21.840 And it has straight up portholes on it, like it's 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.480 meant to look like a ship. And so this idea 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.240 that you could make something look like something else but 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:31.520 also look very elegant definitely kind of found formed part 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.520 of the foundation for googie architecture. It's very cool. Another 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.480 thing that influenced it is called programmatic or memetic architecture. 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:46.440 This is basically like how you would see it today 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.200 is if if you like see the hard Rock Hotel 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.640 in Florida, that it looks like a giant guitar um. 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.720 It is something that is very intentionally sort of like 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.720 a gimmick designed to look like something else and not 0:08:57.800 --> 0:09:00.440 just like but that evokes an airplane. It's no, it 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.959 looks like an airplane or a giant hot dog or something. Yeah. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.000 Very frequently, especially with memetic um, it was like it 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.679 was the structure was the thing that it was selling. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.160 So like you might have an orange juice stand and 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.040 like the building was a giant orange um yeah, or 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.520 the brown Oh, it's awesome. I saw pictures of an 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.760 abandoned one in Florida somewhere. I don't know where it is, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:25.800 but it would be cool to go see um. And 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.320 then like the brown Derby, the very famous brown Derby 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.480 restaurant in l A. It's a brown Derby, a brown hat, 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.440 or like those donut shops that are like a giant donut. 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.240 That is all memetic architecture. And one of the reasons 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.960 that that gave rise to Googi is because that's what's 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.520 called a vulgar vernacular. It's the kind of thing that 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.040 you don't even need an architect to do. Like the 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.480 owner of the donut shop could could say, hey, construction guys, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.840 I want this to be a donut building for me 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:55.560 out of whatever you want to build it out of, 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:57.959 and you didn't need an architect at all, And that 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.679 was a big thing that kind of It was also 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.040 populous in that respect as well. Yeah, and Googie that 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.320 was away scale back version of that though, you know, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.920 definitely yeah, I mean it would evoke like a rocket ship. 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.840 But if it was a straight up rocket ship, then 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.080 that I think it became a medic right. Yeah, definitely 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.800 transgressing across that line for sure. One of the first 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.240 Googie Buildings is from nine, which would have put it 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.720 really on the leading edge of that whole movement um 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:26.760 and it's still there. It's it's a great place, like 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.680 l A is a really great place to drive around 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.040 and see some of this stuff. It made me miss 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:33.840 living there a lot because I would go to some 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:35.760 of these places and see some of these places on 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.800 a daily basis. But Bob's a Big Boy in Burbank 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.320 in ninety nine designed by Wayne McAllister, who will pop 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.480 up a couple of times in this episode. Uh, and 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.160 he built the l Rancho in Las Vegas and Bob's 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.200 Big Boy in Burbank, which is it's it's really known 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:58.120 for its thirty five ft high sign of depicting Bob himself. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:00.640 Is that who it's supposed to be in the red 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:05.400 and white checkered overalls. Yeah, there's some connection to Shownees 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.280 and I never really looked it up, but it's like 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.319 Showny's Big Boy. That may have just been the franchise 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.360 name or something. I think so, because in Ohio it 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:14.320 was fresh as Big Boy and they all used the 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:19.640 same the same big Boy. Yeah, and it was you 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.319 let's be That's who I aspired to be as a child, 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.040 get out your overalls. Uh So, Bob's Big Boy is 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:31.560 a landmark. Literally. The California Office of Historic Preservation declared 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.960 it an official historic landmark because they wanted to, of 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.880 course tear it down, which sadly happened to so many 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.080 great Googie and other buildings. Yeah, but not Bob's Big 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.640 Boy in Burbank, which is a lot of bees. And 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.440 the reason the reason why it's considered the first Googie 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.640 building is one it was from, but it follows so 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:52.959 much of the Googie aesthetic. Like you said, a thirty 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.480 five ft sign, as attention grabbing as possible, with flashing lights, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:02.840 neon lights, um with giant letters. Usually the building is 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.080 one story, I believe. With Bob's Big Boy, the roof 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.680 kind of swoops in different different directions or um they 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.080 it will go up and then down like in a zigzag. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:16.480 It just the roofs do weird things in a in 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.679 a Googy structure. And there's a bunch of other things too, 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.920 like sweeping arches or parabolas, like the original McDonald's had 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.440 two parabolas on either side. There was the original golden 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.800 arches I think in in Downey, California. Yeah, that was 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.720 very googy uh inspired, although I think it was even 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.960 earlier than than some of these other buildings. I think, uh, yeah, 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.920 we'll get to that one. I think it's right all right, sure, Yeah. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.520 Like I said, roofs can be candelevered up, swept, they 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:50.200 can look like curved themselves. They're usually outlined in lights, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.680 flashing lights, neon lights. Sometimes it looks kind of spacey, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.600 like you said, not exactly a rocket ship, but suggested 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:02.280 of it. Um, geometric shape shapes that that suggest motion, 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:06.800 like boomerang shapes and starbursts. That's huge too. Um. The 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.880 fonts that they use are really exaggerated and big and 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.800 attention grabbing. And um again the signage really really high, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.600 really really gaudy, like sometimes many many times taller than 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.960 the building structure itself. Yeah. So many of the roof 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.040 Googy roof lines really do seem to defy gravity. And 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:27.440 that was kind of one of the points, I think, 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.160 was to to make people wonder how they built it. 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.040 And there are buildings in l A And we're going 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.200 to talk about that gas station in Beverly Hills that 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.880 um for back then. You know, now they have such 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.800 lighter and stronger materials but you know, you're talking about 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.600 building these things a lot of concrete in the nineteen fifties, uh, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.040 and some of these roofs that just swoop up and 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.640 extend to this tiny point, you know, fifty ft above 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.120 the ground, and you're just wondering how in the world 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.840 today accomplished this back then, Yeah, that was They just 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:03.800 say it's good. That's right. Should we take a break, Yeah, 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:05.960 let's take a break. All right, we'll be right back 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:37.920 with more. So what's googie anyway? Where they get that name? Oh? Actually, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.600 it's named after a specific U cafe that was built 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.520 the same year as Bob's Big Boy. It's also sometimes 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.160 considered the first googie uh structure. And the reason why 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.560 is because the cafe was named Googies. The owner, Mortimer Burton, 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.280 named it after his wife, whose family nickname was Googie Um. 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.800 And it wasn't like he said, hey, create a whole 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.720 new architecture, John Lawtner, and we're going to name it 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.000 after my wife. He had no saying that. It was 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:09.200 just that this Googi's Um coffee shop was a really 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.360 good early example of this new kind of architecture that 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.000 was starting to spread in southern California. Yeah. And John 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.080 Lawtner is one of my favorite architects of all time. Uh. 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.200 He was a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright. Uh. He 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.480 did most of his work in the south Land there 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.640 in southern California. Uh. And because the you know, the 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:31.680 weather is so great there and the sun is always 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.080 shining and all the things that people hate about l 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.440 A that don't live in l A. UM, you can 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.400 really do big inside out floor plans where the outside 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.240 is brought in and you've got you can have huge 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.080 pieces of glass and expose would and it just everything. 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.360 Weather is so much better out there, So you're really 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.520 freed up as an architect to do things when you 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.080 don't have to worry about terrential downpours of rain for 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.360 many many days of the year and things like that. Uh. 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.360 And he has built um some some of the great 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.440 houses in l A, some of the great modern homes. UM. 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.880 One which I actually is one of my least favorite 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:09.840 of his, but maybe the most well known, is the 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:13.480 Chemis Sphere House. It's a little too much for me, 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.840 but I get but I get it. It looks like 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.760 a spaceship. It's a favorite. It's like it's almost like 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.400 if Um the eye piece that LeVar Burton wore and 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.080 Star Trek the next generation was turned into a house 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.600 and then thrust into the side of a hill cliff, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:36.320 that would be the Chemo spherehouse. Um, my favorite is 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.680 was made very famous. It's a famous house on its 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.760 own if you're in architecture. But I was made famous 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.160 in The Big Lebowski, which is the Sheets Goldstein House, 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.240 which was Jackie Treehorn's house. So when I started looking 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.680 at um, I think I just said chemosphere and that's 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.600 way different the Chemis spherehouse pictures. I was I was 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.040 wondering if it was that house, and I was like, 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.960 I don't quite think it is. But it's not surprised 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.400 in to me that that was from the same architect. Yeah, 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.600 it's a lot in her house. So just if you 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.280 have time in your indo architecture, just go check out 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.360 a bunch of lot in your homes. They're amazing. So 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.240 he is a really great architect, and like you said, 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.520 he was a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright. That in 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.280 and of itself automatically made him a serious architect in 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.040 the architecture world. But he was kind of into Googie 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.240 as well. He designed that first Googi's Cafe or Googi's 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.159 Coffee shop in the Googy style, and so it was 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.359 a criticism of that work of Lautner Googi's Coffee Shop. 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:37.000 That guy named Douglas Haskell, who was an architecture critic, 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.359 wrote wrote an architect or wrote wrote an article in 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:45.520 ninety two just like really dripping lee satirical article. UM, 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.040 kind of the one of those things where you just 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.560 talk about how great something is, but you're you're discrediting 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.840 the narrator. So anything they're saying, like all these all 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:58.159 this praises actually you know, um veiled criticism or poorly 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:00.879 veiled criticism. And he was the one who coined the 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.680 term Googy to describe the architecture, naming it after that restaurant. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.639 Yeah exactly. UM, I mean it might as well just 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:15.000 say every tenth word in parentheses, I roll right exactly, 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.160 because he did the very cowardly thing, which is made 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:24.040 a fictational character up to explain what Googie. This ficational 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.119 character in this article was Professor Thrug and it was 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:33.119 just it was just dripping with cynicism. Um, you know 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.520 that he was he was talking about or rather, excuse 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:41.080 me thrug. The character was talking about um some of 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:43.680 the well, let me just read this bit was saying 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.360 that um Googi should look both organic and be abstract, 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:52.120 featuring abstract mushrooms or a geometric bird, or even better, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:57.119 an abstract mushroom surmounted by an abstract bird. It's kind 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.280 of hilarious. But one thing he did say is he 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.600 says that the roof of Googie starts off Googies itself, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.440 starts on the level like any other building, but suddenly 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.359 it breaks for the sky. And he wasn't kidding, Like, 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:16.040 if you look up um Googie's uh, the Googies coffee 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.840 shop on one side of it, the the entire building, 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.000 not just the roof, but the entire building goes up 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.959 at an angle like it's on a hinge, and the 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.359 whole that whole side of the building is is angled 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:31.320 like it's gone up. It's nuts. It's the only way 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.920 you can say it. And so he's he's critical of that, um, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.359 but that really weird gravity defying roof and in fact, 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.200 gravity defying building that became like a trademark part of 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.760 of Googie. And what's funny is his Lautner was considered 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:51.359 serious enough that on the next page, after Douglas Haskell's 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.320 scathing criticism in in the nine article of House and 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.320 Home is a profile of Lautner in his work because 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.680 he's a serious architect and everybody knew it. Yeah, I mean, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.720 that's sort of the trick of this thing is. I'm 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.800 sure the tongue was in cheek and maybe Haskell was 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:08.520 just trying to have a little bit of fun and 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.080 I'm taking it too seriously. Uh, well, it was an 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.600 obnoxious thing to do. First it was. It was pretty obnoxious. 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.280 But the takeaway is that they wrote about it, and um, 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.560 they could have continued to ignore it, but they even 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.880 said that, um though House and Homes editors would prefer 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.479 to not go nearly so far as Lawtner does, they 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.160 believe that serious designer Lawtner should no longer be officially ignored. 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.440 So you know, we we'll recognize you by making fun 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.600 of it. It's like House and Home were like the 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.680 head of a high school click or something, right exactly, So, 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.919 Lawtner's very much associated with Googie, but he was not 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.040 the only one. And what's what's also what also makes 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.840 Googie so populist is that it was decentralized. There were 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.760 a bunch of different people working in south southern California 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.359 trying to do the same aime, which was get as 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.359 many eyeballs onto their customers building to bring that many 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.399 more people into the customer's business. Because again, it's a 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.680 commercial architecture movement, and it was totally decentralized, and anybody 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.680 could push whatever envelope they wanted to. Anything really went. Yeah, 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.240 the Googie almost had Gookie Houser the Googie. The Googie 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:21.119 house movement was much more limited. Uh, it just it 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:22.760 doesn't you know, it's kind of cool, but it doesn't 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.600 fit houses as much as it fits like a bowling alley, Yeah, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.160 or even like a dry cleaner, like anything. You could 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.000 just be like, give me one of those buildings. Yeah. Uh. 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:37.040 So there was an architectural firm that was hugely responsible 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:39.600 for building a lot of these buildings or designing a 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:41.800 lot of them. Uh. And it was our Mette and 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:46.320 Davis Open Inn by Eldon Davison, I guess Louis are 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:51.760 met and they basically saw a big opportunity in the 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:56.720 commercial sector. I think they were industrial designers initially, and 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.440 they started getting hired to build these buildings and kind 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:02.840 of one of the really cool parts of their story is, uh, 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:08.200 they hired a junior drafts person named Helen Lou Fong, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.960 and this was someone who graduated with a degree in 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.880 city planning from Berkeley but could only get work as 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:20.399 a secretary because she was an Asian woman. And Armatt 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.280 and Davis gave Helen Fong a chance um as a 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.439 junior drafts person, and she ended up being kind of 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:32.000 one of the sort of central UH influencers. And I 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.480 used that in the old school use of the term 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:38.359 um of that movement. Yeah, I thought that was really 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.960 cool that they did that too. UM. So one of 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.080 the first things they in Leash drawn was the Clock 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:47.160 restaurant in Westchester, which is there's not that many images 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.080 of it, um, but yeah, so if you can, if 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:52.000 you can find it, it's pretty cool. Like I saw 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.560 an original sketch that I guess Helen Fong must have done, um, 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.560 and it's just all sorts of angles in one triangle 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.679 jutting out of another triangle, and it's it's just a 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.439 really neat building, Like I can only imagine being like 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.320 a junior architect and and them saying like, go go 0:23:09.480 --> 0:23:12.200 nuts like do whatever you want and they're done. I 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.440