Googie architecture is a type of futurist commercial architecture, influenced by car culture, jet aircraft, and the Atomic Age and Space Age, that originated in Southern California out of the 1930s Streamline Moderne style and remained popular in the United States from roughly 1945 into the early 1970s. The style became especially associated with roadside businesses catering to a car driving public, including motels, coffee shops and gas stations, designed to catch a driver's eye at speed. Its name comes from the now defunct Googies Coffee Shop in Hollywood, designed by the architect John Lautner. Googie buildings channeled the era's fascination with speed, technology and the space age into their design through motifs including the boomerang shape, sharp diagonals, atomic burst starbursts and bright, saturated colors, giving roadside commercial buildings a deliberately futuristic, attention grabbing character.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Influenced By
Mid-century Googie architecture evolved from Streamline Moderne with added Space Age and atomic-era motifs.
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