Alan Hess Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Chronicle Books: San Francisco, CA, 1985, 1930s
The '30s:
ˆ "The Streamline Modern style of the 1930s in Los Angeles was a convincing dress rehearsal for the democratic technological future of the 1950s. . . .
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"The smooth Streamline forms carried the eye easily around corners, reducing resistance for efficient movement, a visual metaphor of the reduced wind resistance of streamlined locomotives and airplanes. The teardrop form, its continuous planes submerging individual elements under a single organic shape, . . . " p. 19
" . . .
"Herbert's, Carpenter's, Simon's, Harrold's, Robert's, Van de Kamp's, and other Los Angeles drive-ins set a pattern of bold, futurist, car-oriented architecture that culminated in the coffee shops of the forties and fifties . . . Catering to the Southern California public's fondness for the mobile life style, drive-ins made it easier for people to patronise roadside restraurants, which in turn encouraged the public's reliance on automobile transportation.
"Los Angeles consciously embarked upon a policy of sprawl . . . the dispersed city was a solution to the congestion of eastern cities.
"The climate . . . also shaped the drive-in culture . . . Buildings could be built more quickly and of lighter material, like wood and stucco . . . " p. 20
" . . . The convertible and the drive-in applied the same principal to the car culture . . ." p. 21
" . . .
"Restaurants offered a wide range of atmospheres, from the society nightclubs like Ciro's and the Trocadero on the Sunset Strip and the fancy dinner houses of La Cienega's restaurant row, to the strip-scaled Tail o' the Pup, the Giant Tamale, and Whizzin's Chili Bowls, with innumerable barbecue pits. greasy spoons, tearooms, cafeterias, and diners in between.
" . . . ." p. 23
"Wayne McAllister moved to Los Angeles in the early thirties . . . designed the first Simon's . . . circular plan organized cars like spokes of a wheel, making all customers equally accessible to the carhops and the central kitchen. Its octagonal canopy covered the walkway around the building; in later Simon's, McAllister would extend the canopy even farther to cover more of the cars themselves. A central pylon made the building visible to passing motorists; at night, tubing hidden behind metal louvers created a neon exclamation point." p. 24
" . . . Neon was used not just for lettering, or pictorially, but as an integrated architectural element to delineate form.
"A counter with twelve stools stood inside, with the carhop counter between. The drive-in never closed. Indeed, it couldn't close; there were no doors . . .
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"McAllister followed by designing several more Simon's as well as Robert's, Herbert's, McDonnell's, Van de Kamp's and later Bob's Big Boy . . ." p. 25
"The rise of drive-in restaurants was paralleled by the rise of the auto court and motel, shopping centers, the supermarket, and the drive-in theater. All responded to the same technological and commercial phenomenon, the widespread availability and ownership of the auto . . .
"The drive-ins of the thirties . . . recognized that, for a commercial building, advertising is a legitimate function to be expressed in architectural form . . . the entire building was conceived as a sign to attract customers . . ." p. 27
"McAllister helped develop a workable and influential architectural vocabulary for the commercial strip. Bold block letters outlined in neon, the sculptural use of reflected and exposed neon, the circular pavilions with central mast, the use of glass, and functional elements like overhangs, car arrangements . . ." p. 28
" . . . 1940 when architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock . . ." Outside Neutra's work and that of his group, most of the interesting things are-so far as I could discover, effectively anonymous. I mean the drive-ins . . . represent a very model of what exposition or resort architecture ought to be, light, gay, open, well executed and designed to be as effective by night as by day . . . " p. 28