Googie -- an architectural movement popular in the 1950s -- epitomized an era during which people really believed that, by 2001, we'd live on Lunar Colonies, as opposed to Thomas Kinkade colonies. But no regrets, especially considering the Googie relics that have survived the cruel seventies, eighties and nineties now stand proud among our own generation's roadside architectural achievements, such as Costco.Also called Space Age, Coffee House Modern, Doo-Wop, and (for some reason) Populuxe, Googie architecture was just one of many oddball roadside styles to emerge 60 years ago, along with Tiki (in which coconut-shell cocktails with straws were obligatory) and Mimetic Architecture, in which the buildings were shaped like the products they sold. Googie, named after a Los Angeles coffee shop that pioneered the design, and characterized by its bright rectangular signs, industrial effects and arching rooflines, was intended -- like all Roadside Architecture -- to capture the attention of motorists cruising along at 20mph sipping Moscow Mules in their Ford Fairlanes. Which was good times.
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