Stuff You Should Know - Googie: The Architecture of the Space Age

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

You may not have heard of it, but you’ve definitely seen it before – 50s buildings with bright, loud colors, roofs at crazy angles, and space-age shapes like starbursts. It turns out that Googie architecture is as fun to look at as it is to say.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey friends when you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? So I was pretty surprised to hear about Lisa in Manitoba who got the idea to Airbnb the backyard guest house over childhood home now The extra income helps pay her mortgage. So yeah, you might not realize it But you might have an Airbnb to find out what your place could be earning at air bnb.ca Slash host hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new I hard podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do you've come to the right place? Because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life

Tell everybody yeah, everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with the Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts Welcome to stuff you should know a production of I heart radio Hey and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's hanging out and this is stuff you should know are Are continuing architecture slash design sweet which we love surprising. Yeah, surprisingly interesting stuff Yeah, and this one. I mean listen however you listen, but if you have a choice I really would urge you to listen to this when you can look at pictures of things

This one above many many episodes requires you to look at this stuff as you're listening ideally Yeah, and so if you can do that do that. Yeah, because we're gonna be mentioning specific buildings that you could go check out and be like Oh, this is what they're talking about. We're gonna do our best But we're going to be describing structures and it's just way easier to look at the structure, you know, it's got a sweepy pointy thing Yeah, that's basically it. Livy it was kind enough To insert hyperlinks into what she sent us. Mm-hmm. That made it super easy. I didn't even have to Google the googie And that is what we're talking about. It's not a typo everybody. It's googie. It's a kind of architecture GOOGIE

And it is basically the architecture that you think of when you think of the 1950s made 50s to the very early 60s in America Well, the 50s when they were thinking of the 90s Exactly. That's a really good way to put that might look like. Yeah, and they were way way off But I mean how great would the 90s have been if it looked like what they thought it was gonna look like in the 50s I think it would have been pretty cool because I personally a really big fan of googie architecture It's nothing like I don't go tour the buildings or anything like that In fact, there's one in Georgia and I looked up where that town is and I'm like that's not worth the drive

But I do like looking at pictures of them. I might That bank is three and a half hours from my house and I want to open up an account there Just so I can drive down to that amazing building in the middle of nowhere southeast Georgia It is really the middle. It's not near anything. Nothing nowhere around it But it does have a really fine example of googie architecture, which we'll get to which we should probably define beyond It's the architecture that you think of when you think of the 50s or 60s, right and before we define it I just want to say that my love affair with googie started out when I was a kid. Oh, yeah

when I first honestly when I first went to Tomorrowland at Disney World, oh, yeah, and then when I started watching the Jetsons and And being in Georgia, I didn't see any examples of googie really growing up But took my first trip to LA in 1988 Saw a bunch of googie. I was like, I love this stuff and then in the 1994 Took my first trip to New York where I met my friend Bob and

This is was not exterior architecture, but this was that early to mid 90s Sort of design like kind of space-age bachelor pad design movement. That's called pop you looks I saw yeah And that's sort of akin to googie and Bob had his stuff like that and I thought it was so cool And he told me about googie and that's the first time I had heard that word was in 1994 That's hilarious. I heard the word the first time like this month. I think well, oh really mm-hmm Well, I mean you don't you don't hear it a lot, but I think people that know it like to tell other people and name it Right and Bob was one of those people because I remember when Google came along when I was living in LA And I was like like the architecture and everyone went. Oh

So anyway, that's just a long personal preamble. Should we define it? I like it. Yeah, let's define it Chuck have at it All right, so this was this came about post World War two Mm-hmm, and I love how Libya put this it was influenced by the techno optimism of that era Yeah, which was a thing it was like hey, this is it was like Tomorrowland this is what the future is gonna be like and you know, there's gonna have like Cool shapes and things are gonna look like rocket ships and cars can have these big fins and look like spaceships Mm-hmm, and we love neon lights and we love these gentle pastels and it was kind of a a Populous movement. Yeah, and that it wasn't like just meant for the rich

No, it wasn't meant for the rich and as a matter of fact one of the other big Definitions of it is it was a commercial movement So like you didn't really see anybody's house constructed in Googie But you would see like a dry cleaner or a bowling alley or a coffee shop. That was a big one Yeah, or diner So these were places that like any American could go to and did so it was it was really fun eye-popping bright-colored

space-age design and architecture for the everyday person and that's definitely one of the things that made it so Lovable, but it's also conversely one of the things that made like architecture critics and like, you know The legitimate I'm making square scare quotes architects hate it because it was populist in nature. Yeah, for sure it emerged and and Largely stayed in California. It did, you know, we'll talk about where it did branch out here and there across the US but it's really a California thing and really a southern California thing and California at the time really Did sort of represent the future in a lot of ways post World War two it was

You know, it was the far west and it was I think a city where people moved to from the east that saw possibilities in California the land of sunshine the land of the future and The whole idea of this commercial part of it was let's design Let's say a gas station that will really stand out if you're it was a car culture, you know after World War two and let's design something That can really be noticed when you're speeding down the highway Yeah, that was a really big driving force for Googie like if you if you look at a Googie building You see it like a mile away or many miles away because of the bright colors because of the weird angles It really is designed to stand out from its surroundings a lot of architecture is designed to

compliment blend kind of see be seamless with its surroundings whether that's nature or existing buildings Googie did not take that into account at all and actually went the opposite way And one of the big reasons was because in California is a car culture to get people's attention as they're speeding past You kind of have to use those design elements and that was that was basically why Googie came along That's right. I mentioned the Jetsons and that wasn't just in jest That was a real thing. It was inspired by things like the Jetsons If you look at the original Hanna-Barbera studio building and on Kowanga in West Hollywood It was a Googie building. It was sort of Googie meets Art Deco, which

Googie has a little bit of its roots in Art Deco in some ways and also, you know, I guess we should talk about some other Kinds of architecture that it sort of sprang from Art Deco was one and then one that is also super cool It's called Streamline Modern and that is if you look up any Streamline Modern building You might think you're looking at an ocean liner or something. There are no squared Corners on these buildings like everything which is also very Art Deco has these beautiful rounded edges Yeah, which is really neat There's also usually structures that kind of suggests like a ocean liner smoke stacks or something

Sometimes they even put portholes in the buildings like there was a Coca-Cola bottling plant That was Streamline Modern in the 30s I think maybe 40s in LA and it has straight-up portholes on it Like it's meant to look like a ship and so this idea that you could make something look like something else But also look very elegant Definitely kind of found formed part of the foundation for a Googie architecture. It's very cool Another thing that influenced it was is called the programmatic or memetic architecture. This is basically like

How you would see it today is if you like see the Hard Rock Hotel in Florida that it looks like a giant guitar It is something that is very intentionally sort of like a gimmick Designed to look like something else and not just like but that evokes an airplane It's no it looks like an airplane or a giant hot dog or something. Yeah, very frequently, especially with memetic It was like it was the the structure was the thing that it was selling So like you might have an orange juice stand and like the building was a giant orange Yeah, or the brown tacky, but it's fun. Oh, it's awesome I saw pictures of an abandoned one in Florida somewhere. I don't know where it is

But it would be cool to go see and then like the Brown Derby the very famous Brown Derby restaurant in LA It's a Brown Derby a brown hat or like those donut shops that are like a giant donut That is all memetic architecture and one of the reasons that that gave rise to Googie is because that's what's called a vulgar vernacular It's the kind of thing that you don't even need an architect to do like the owner of the donut shop could could say Hey construction guys, I want this to be a donut build it for me out of whatever you want to build it out of and you Didn't need an architect at all and that was a big thing that kind of it was also populist in that respect as well Yeah, and Googie that was a way scale-back version of that though. Definitely. Yeah

I mean it would evoke like a rocket ship But if it was a straight-up rocket ship then that I think it became a medic, right? Yeah, definitely transgressing cross that line for sure One of the first Googie buildings is from 1949 Which would have put it really on the leading edge of that whole movement and it's still there It's it's a great place like LA is a really great place to drive around and see some of this stuff It made me miss living there a lot because I would go to some of these places and see some of these places on a daily basis But Bob's big boy in Burbank in 1949 designed by Wayne McAllister who will pop up a couple of times in this episode and

he built the L Rancho in Las Vegas and Bob's big boy in Burbank, which is it's really known for that's 35 foot high Sign of depicting Bob himself, right? Is that who it's supposed to be in the red and white checkered overalls? Yeah, there's some Connection to Shoney's and I never really looked it up But it's like Shoney's big boy that may have just been the franchise name or something I think so because in Ohio, it was Frisch's big boy and they all used the same the same big boy. Yeah And it was you

That's who I aspired to be as a child get out your overalls So Bob's big boy is a landmark literally in 1992 the California Office of Historic Preservation declared it an official historic landmark Because they wanted to of course tear it down, which sadly happened to so many great Googie and other buildings Yeah, but not Bob's big boy in Burbank, which is a lot of bees and the reason the reason why it's considered the first Googie building is one It was from 1949, but it follows so much of the Googie aesthetic like you said a 35 foot sign As attention grabbing as possible with flashing lights neon lights With giant letters

Usually the building is one story I believe with Bob's big boy the roof kind of swoops in different different directions or They'll go up and then down like in a zigzag. It's just the roofs do weird things Yeah, in a in a Googie structure and there's a bunch of other things too like sweeping arches or parabolas Like the original McDonald's had two parabolas on either side. That was the original golden arches. I think in Downey, California Yeah, that was very Googie Inspired although I think it was even earlier than than some of these other buildings I think yeah, we'll get to that one. I think it was the 50s, right? All right, sure

Yeah, like I said roofs can be cantilevered up swept. They can look like curved themselves They're usually outlined in lights flashing lights neon lights. Sometimes it looks kind of Spacey like you said not exactly a rocket ship. It's suggested of it Um geometric shapes shapes that that suggest motion like boomerang shapes and starbursts. That's huge too the fonts that they use are really exaggerated and big and attention-grabbing and Again the signage really really high really really gaudy Like sometimes many many times taller than the building structure itself Yeah, so many of the roof Googie roof lines really do seem to defy gravity and that was kind of one of the points

I think mm-hmm was to to make people wonder how they built it and There are buildings in LA. We're gonna talk about that gas station in Beverly Hills that For back then, you know now they have such lighter and stronger materials But you know you're talking about building these things a lot of concrete in the 1950s and some of these roofs that just Swoop up and extend to this tiny point, you know 50 feet above the ground Mm-hmm, and you're just wondering how in the world did they accomplish this back then? Yeah, and that was the point. They just say it's googie

That's right Should we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. All right. We'll be right back with more googie Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted tips with Lance Bass the hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough Or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you Oh God Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you

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Just another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself Of course, there is something else you could do if you got something to say You could I don't know start a podcast with speaker from my iHeart and unleash your creative freedom and spend all day Researching and talking about stuff you love and maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your Irritating boss as you quit and walk off into the sunset. Hey, I'm no settler. I'm an explorer Spreaker.com. That's a SBRE a KER Hustle on over today. Oh So what's Googie anyway, where'd they get that name? Oh, actually, it's named after a specific

Cafe that was built the same year as Bob's big boy. It's also sometimes considered the first Googie Structure and the reason why is because the cafe was named Googies The owner Mortimer Burton named it after his wife whose family nickname was Googie And it wasn't like he said hey create a whole new architecture John Lautner and we're gonna name it after my wife He had no say in that it was just that this Googie's coffee shop was a really good early example of this new kind of Architecture that was starting to spread in southern, California. Yeah, and John Lautner is one of my favorite architects of all time Yeah, he's neat. He was a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright He did most of his work in the Southland there in southern, California

And because you know the weather is so great there and the Sun is always shining and all the things that people hate about LA That don't live in LA You can really do big Inside out floor plans where the outside is brought in and you've got you can add huge pieces of glass and expose Wood and it just everything weather is so much better out there. So you're really freed up as an architect To do things when you don't have to worry about Torrential downpours of rain for many many days of the year and things like that, right? and he has built

Some some of the great houses in LA some of the great modern homes One which I actually is one of my least favorite of his but maybe the most well-known is the chemosphere house It's a little too much for me It looks like a spaceship, it's like it's almost like if the I piece that LeVar Burton wore and Star Trek the next generation was turned into a house and then Thrust into the side of a hill. Yeah, that would be the chemosphere house My favorite is was made very famous. It's a famous house on its own if you're in architecture

But I was made famous in the big Lebowski, which is the sheets Goldstein house Which was Jackie tree horns? Oh, so when I started looking at I think I just said chemo sphere And that's way different the chemo sphere house pictures I was I was wondering if it was that house and I was like, I don't quite think it is But it's not surprising to me that that was from the same architect. Yeah, it's a lot in our house So just if you had time in your end architecture, just go check out a bunch of lot in our homes. They're amazing So he is a really great architect and like you said, he was a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright that in and of itself Automatically made him a serious architect in the architecture world

But he was kind of into Googie as well. He designed that first Googie's cafe Or Googie's coffee shop in the Googie style And so it was a criticism of that work of Lautner Googie's coffee shop that a guy named Douglas Haskell Who was an architecture critic wrote wrote an architect or wrote an article in 1952? Just like really drippingly satirical article Kind of the one of those things where you just talk about how great something is but you're you're discrediting the narrator So anything they're saying like all these all this praise is actually, you know veiled criticism or poorly veiled criticism

And he was the one who coined the term Googie to describe the architecture naming it after that restaurant Yeah, exactly I Mean it might as well just say every tenth word in parentheses I roll You're right. Exactly because he did the very cowardly thing which is made a fictitional character up To explain what Googie this fictitional character in this article was Professor Throg And it was just it was just dripping with cynicism You know that he was he was talking about or rather excuse me Throg the character was talking about

Some of the well, let me just read this bit. It was saying that Googie should look both organic and be abstract featuring abstract mushrooms or a geometric bird or even better an Abstract mushroom surmounted by an abstract bird It's kind of hilarious but One thing he does say is he says that it's the the roof of Googie starts off or Googies itself starts on the level like any other Building, but suddenly it breaks for the sky and he wasn't kidding like if you look up Googies the

1949 Googies coffee shop Mm-hmm on one side of it the the entire building not just the roof But the entire building goes up at an angle like it's on a hinge and the whole that whole side of the building is Is angled like it's gone up. It's nuts. It's the only way you can say it and so he's he's critical of that But that really weird Gravity-defying roof and in fact gravity-defying building that became like a trademark part of of Googie And what's funny is his Lautner was considered serious enough that on the next page after Douglas Haskell's scathing criticism and in that 1952 article of house and home is a profile of Lautner and his work because he's a serious

Architect and everybody knew it. Yeah, I mean that's sort of the trick of this thing is I'm sure the tongue was in cheek and maybe Haskell was just trying to have a little bit of fun and I'm taking it too seriously, right? Well, it was an obnoxious thing to do for it was it was pretty obnoxious but the takeaway is that they wrote about it and They could have continued to ignore it but they even said that Though house and homes editors would prefer to not go nearly so far As Lautner does they believe that serious designer Lautner should no longer be officially ignored. So

You know, we'll recognize you by making fun of it It's like house and home were like the head of a high school clique or something, right? Exactly, so Lautner is very much associated with Googie But he was not the only one and what's what's also made what also makes Googie so populist is that it was decentralized There were a bunch of different people working in South Southern California Trying to do the same aim which was get as many eyeballs onto their customers building To bring that many more people into the customers business because again

It's a commercial architecture movement and it was totally decentralized and anybody could push whatever envelope They wanted to anything really went. Yeah, the Googie almost said Googie house or the Googie the Googie house movement was much more limited It just it doesn't you know, it's kind of cool, but it doesn't fit houses as much as it fits like a bowling alley Yeah, or even like a Dry cleaner like anything you could just be like give me one of those buildings. Yeah So there was the architectural firm that was hugely responsible for building a lot of these buildings or designing a lot of them And it was Armet and Davis open in 1947 by Eldon Davidson, I guess Lewis Armet and

And they Basically saw a big opportunity in the commercial sector. I think they were industrial designers initially and they started getting hired to build these buildings and kind of one of the really cool parts of their story is they hired a junior drafts person named Helen Lou Fong and This was someone who graduated with a degree in city planning from Berkeley in 1949 but could only get work as a secretary because she was an Asian woman and Armet and Davis gave Helen Fong a chance

As a junior drafts person and she ended up being kind of one of the sort of central Influencers and I use that in the old-school use of the term right of that movement Yeah, I thought that was really cool that they did that too So one of the first things they unleashed Ron was the clock restaurant in Westchester, which is there's not that many images of it But yeah, if you can if you can find it, it's pretty cool Like I saw an original sketch that I guess Helen Fong must have done And it's just all sorts of angles in one triangle jutting out of another triangle And it's it's just a really neat building like I can only imagine being like a junior architect and

And in them saying like go go nuts like do whatever you want and they're gonna love it So she she that was her first one her next one in the most famous one was pans coffee shop on Latahara, am I saying that right? Latahara Latahara. Oh, I got all fancy in in LA obviously Yeah, and that's probably not the technical way to pronounce it, but that's how everyone says it. I think no, it's I mean I get it I'm a I'm a prescript. No a descriptionist. It was built in 1958 had has again one of those dramatically angled roofs uses a lot of neon and Flagstone was a big deal with coffee shops or a lot of flagstone walls at coffee shops back then big plate glass windows and a lot of these coffee shops

And they described it as a place where George Jetson and Fred Flintstone could meet over a cup of coffee Yeah, because you're using flagstone amidst like for Micah and like boomerang and in space imagery That was a quote from a guy named Alan Hess who's an architecture historian Who literally wrote the book not once but twice on Googie and actually kicked off a Googie Preservation movement in the late 80s actually as we'll see hooray for Hess, right? That's right up with Hess They and we you know we talked a lot about coffee shops It was actually kind of also called coffee shop modern Because there were so many of them are met and Davis and Fong

Built or I'm sorry designed more than 4,000 of these coffee shops, right? That's crazy That's like all the coffee shops. What's funny is if you there was a an obit of Davis I can't remember when he died, but he he died a very old man And he had said that he didn't really see much of a reason to preserve these These buildings which I think is a little A little modest yeah, because people are saying like these are masterpieces like they it's just that the architecture world didn't appreciate them But they're great buildings and people are destroying them and the reason why is because as as Davis pointed out These are commercial buildings and I saw someone describe commercial buildings as probably the architecture

That's under the most pressure to reinvent and reshape itself to keep up with the times Like you can't be sentimental with your commercial building if Googie is out and it went out fairly quick You got to scrap it and start over and update or else you're going to people are going to think you're bill Your business is behind and behind the times and out of touch and you just can't let that happen Or else you're gonna lose out on business So he was saying like there's you know, it was they were commercial buildings like what do you want? Of course people are going to tear them down and replace them with something else Yeah, I never really thought about that. That's interesting because unless you do something really revolutionary and you you have a you know

Netflix show about your house Um, you can go out in 2022 and say I want to build a colonial and no one will be like really I mean it may not be your particular style But they still build colonial houses and craftsmen's and all kinds of houses from all sorts of eras, but I think a commercial building That really makes a lot of sense. Like you can't go out and build a commercial building that looks 30 years old right you might can go out and build something that looks like 50 years old if it's some kind of cool retro thing Right, but you can't be anywhere in between and build something that looks dated, you know No, you can't it can be classic, but it can't be dated. I think that's the fatal flaw is dated and and

Googie dated itself very quickly as we'll see that's right and then there was norms too We didn't mention norms. That was another Helen Fong Classic too, which is just like a great example of Googie architecture. I think norms is still there too. Yes I believe it was also designated a historic and cultural monument by the la city council because it was going to go under the wrecking ball And they stepped in and said nope. You're not going to tear down this norm So it is still there and it is an awesome building. It's great. It's on la cienega right there in hollywood Like a lot of these buildings are

The holiday bowl. This was a really special story. There's a bowling alley on crinchall boulevard in crinchall in los angeles and Fong designed the interior and there was a bar in there called sabica Oh, man. I'll bet it was so awesome. I bet it was hoppin man The cool thing about this area at the time was it was one of the only integrated parts of los angeles Uh, the local high school literally had one third african-american one third asian-american and one third white kids Really? Yeah, and that was what made uh, the holiday bowl so special is you had

These different cultures and groups of people getting together where they didn't do so in most parts of los angeles at the time Uh, and they had that not only were they bowling but there was a coffee shop on the premises And when we keep saying coffee shop, these were coffee shop like the pulp fiction. They were like diners basically Yeah, I saw that they were a step up from diners, but not, you know, as as nice as like a regular restaurant. Yeah Exactly. I saw him to strive. He's just yeah, that's that's a good way to put it But at the holiday bowl diner. I'm sorry the holiday bowl coffee shop Uh, they had all kinds of food. They had udon. They had grits and southern Uh, like soul food. They had straight-up burgers and fries

I read an article where people were saying like this was you know, the first time they ever had sushi in their life And this was in the 1950s and early 60s. Yeah, which was crazy Um, or I don't know if they had sushi that early, but at least at some point they did Uh, it was a 24 seven place where people could go hang out. They could drink at the bowling alley go to this coffee shop after Uh, and it was um, actually protected during the LA riots in 92 like residents of Crenshaw lined up outside of the holiday bowl Oh, yeah, so people wouldn't touch it. So, um, I saw that it was demolished, but I also saw a picture from Three years after it was supposedly demolished and it was still there But the coffee shop is now a Starbucks and the bowling alley is now a Walgreens. It looks like

Yeah, so what they did was they did destroy the actual bowling alley part And rebuilt it as a Walgreens, but that exterior coffee shop facade is still attached and It is a Starbucks. Yeah, but it's still googie. Yeah, it looks cool So, um, there are some other ones we mentioned the the original or one of the earliest mcdonalds from downy california 1953 There's always one still there. I think right low building parabolas on either side Yeah, and that mcdonalds like you mentioned is in downy and we talked about it in the uh, mcdonalds episode Taco bell one too, I think. Oh really? Okay. I thought you were making a joke No, no for real the taco episode because we talked about taco bell and like there were a bunch of ones from downy california. Oh, okay

Uh, but it's an amazing looking restaurant and it's got a uh, it's got a really cool little museum mcdonalds museum next door So you can still walk up. It's a it's just a sort of Counter not counters. I guess it is counter service, but you can't go in, you know What do you call those a walk through a walk up take out? Sure any of those I think someone said they built a Finally built a drive-through, but I don't think you can dine in still boy I guess they they're the first mcdonalds to have a drive-through then No, I think more recently built a drive-through. No, I'm just teasing. Okay

One of the other things you mentioned the holiday bowl and bowling alleys were just like Begging to be made into googie structures And another good example is the covena bowl in covena california, which I guess is around los angeles And um, it is it still remains it's still there. It's up for grabs exactly what's going to happen to it um, but They're they're in talks to somehow preserve some of the facade or structure or sign or something as they redevelop it I think in the condos, but it was divine designed by a firm that created 50 bowling alleys throughout california in the seven years between 1955 and 62

And I mean, I think actually this is what gave me the idea for this episode chuck because I was looking at old bowling alleys Oh and the bowling episode. Yeah, and I came across the term googie Because I was like this is just such a cool looking bowling alley and sure enough It was googie and it just led to one thing led to another and here we are Well that uh, hollywood star lanes where the big Lebowski was shot was very googie. Mm-hmm and I was just I meant to mention during the lotter segment uh

I saw that they just a few years ago One of the lotter homes was up for sale, which is a rarity in and of itself But it was and I say only two and a half million bucks That's a lot of money for a house to be sure, but I just thought with la southern california real estate anyway And it's this historic building and an historic architect and it's amazing. I thought it would be like 12 million bucks. Yeah, you'd definitely think that so yeah, I was very surprised I mean it seemed like a steal. I didn't have I didn't have the cash on me

It looked pretty amazing and we should mention the ship's coffee shops as well, right those the little tiny Three coffee shop chain. Yeah, um, they were uh, kind of boomerang shaped from what I could tell I couldn't see like a really good picture of those guys But I thought what was kind of cute is apparently every every, um, location had a toaster on every table Best idea of all time except for the liability probably the liability But also like every once in a while, there's a crank that would come in and be like well I want a discount since I have to toast it myself And because I can think of that that means that there's a possibility I might have been that guy

I just I want to make my own toast in restaurants more than anything It does seem like a good idea for sure. It's a very specific thing how people like their toasts made so I I love that idea, but uh hats off to ships for that one other one too That's kind of an icon of googie. Uh, you mentioned before that gulf 76 station Amazing that's in Beverly Hills And it apparently the the design of it not the gulf station itself, but the design of this roof It's um been likened to a flying carpet And it really kind of looks like when it's got

Some of the most amazing curves I've ever seen that just don't make any sense whatsoever For a roof, but it really looks cool And once you understand that it was supposed to be part of the the lax airport Yeah, then you're like, oh, okay, that makes sense But apparently it got cut out of the design But the designer jinn wong was like this is too cool to just not do let's just turn it into a gas station instead I've gotten gas there every I mean, I wasn't in Beverly Hills much, but Um, I I tried to get gas there when I could it's a crescent drive

And little Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills, and it is a very very cool gas station I shot at one of these out in uh the desert, which I guess leads us to arrested No, no, no, no we we shot a tv commercial at one of these roadside gas stations like a route 66 type of deal Out in the middle of nowhere that looking back was super googie Um, and that leads us to a break because we're gonna come back and talk about the desert and las vegas Hey, I'm lance bass host of the new i hard podcast frosted tips with lance bass The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself?

What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh god Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an sos because I'll be there for you Oh, man, and so my husband Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep We know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step Oh, not another one. Uh-huh kids relationships life in general can get messy You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen

So we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye Listen to frosted tips with lance bass on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm mange shtikler and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born It's been a part of my life in india. It's like smoking. You might not smoke But you're gonna get secondhand astrology and lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and Pay attention Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you

It got weird fast Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, k-pop But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology My whole world came crashing down Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father And my whole view on astrology It changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer

I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to skyline drive and the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Here's to the great american settlers The millions of you have settled for unsatisfying jobs because they pay the bills and uh You just kind of fell into it and you know, it's like totally fine Just another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself Of course, there is something else you could do if you got something to say You could, oh, I don't know, start a podcast with Spreaker from iHeart And unleash your creative freedom and spend all day researching and talking about stuff you love

And maybe even earn enough money to one day tell your irritating bosses you quit and walk off into the sunset Hey, I'm no settler. I'm an explorer Spreaker.com. That's a sbr eak er Solano over today Okay, Chuck you set us up maybe better than we've ever been set up before And if you've been sitting here listening to us describe googie architecture even going and looking at some of the photos You might be like man, this seems really vegas to me

You would be right about that because it got exported to vegas pretty quick and took off like a rocket there starting with the sands In 1952 it was the first googie-esque structure there because before that it was all like bolero ties and wagon wheels I know funny. Yeah, and then the sands came along and said you hicks. We're gonna start something new We're the mafia. We're the trendsetting mafia of all time We're gonna take you into the space age And that sands was I think you said built in 52 and that brings back Mr. Wayne McAllister into the picture who designed that Bob's big boy and burbank just a few years before that

And you know just look up any image of the old sands Casino sign and it had that egg carton grid. It was really tall. It was like close to 60 feet in the air very geometric shapes And the script was super googie as well And I think vegas took notice and said you know, I don't know who those mob guys are talking to but They're on to something here and googie started popping up everywhere

Uh including probably most famously in that iconic welcome to fabulous las vegas sign Yeah, that is super googie I mean like if you if you're ever talking to somebody about a googie design And they ask you what you're talking about to say they're like the designer the loss welcome to las vegas sign That's it's it's it hits basically every cord on that like big exaggerated fonts different kinds of fonts. There's starbursts. There's geometric shapes There's a whole bunch of different colors. It's it's googie in its deepest soul It is it's a great sign. Um while I was looking at all this stuff up

I was in my head. I was like wait, I feel like they were old Howard johnson's motels that were kind of googie. Yeah, I think you might be right and I looked and I looked and I couldn't find any And then finally I did and sure enough A handful of those hojos from that era Uh had these big swoopy pointy triangular roofs that went all the way down to the ground kind of like an a-frame And and jutted way out over the roadway and uh, I knew I'd seen those in my past But I don't think it was a lot of them, but it just kind of goes to show where how googie spread

Um beyond california and las vegas right and we're gonna talk about a few more of those places Yeah, I mean there's different it just pops up in some random places like apparently the northwest side of chicago Was developed later than the rest of it and it just so happened that googie was having its heyday So there's like some random googie structures trim and tidy cleaners Uh super dog pride cleaners Is really cool looking. Um, I think it's I think that's the one that it looks like a it's a giant triangle With the point sticking out street word if i'm not mistaken It's it's really neat to see and then the ohio house motel

Uh, is what's called it's like a subset of googie architecture called phony cologne Like faux colonial Isn't that awesome? I love that term. Yeah, you have phony cologne Uh, it's gonna be my latest my newest insult. Okay um, the wild woods resort Area of new jersey has a quite a few googie kind of motels. They would say Uh, they would call it doop uh style because that's sort of the 1950s rock and roll Seeing there and the jersey shore at the time

But if you look up, uh, what the the moray family mo rey designed a number of those motels Kind of near the jersey shore seaside, right and they're really cool looking there They're not quite as out there and spaceshipy, but they're definitely googie Uh, and then there's a newer one. I think you know now people are building the occasional Kind of modern googie throwback look and the star lux hotel there is one pretty great example of that Yeah, I found a really great website called modernist architecture And they have a post from 2015 called wildwood the east coast capital of googie. Uh, I mean doop And it is a comprehensive photo spread of all these googie structures in wildwood on the jersey shore

And it just looks like an amazing place to wander around But it's googie through and through I saw that I think in that blog They said that it's probably the densest concentration of googie architecture left in the country Yeah, and it kind of fits those seaside sort of feel I think with the pastels and it just sort of all works together I think yeah There's also some in phoenix and tusan probably most famous in phoenix is what used to be called the 300 bowl a bowling alley again And I read that no one is exactly sure who designed it

What firm or what architect designed the 300 bowl, but is a classic example of of googie architecture There's also paris laundry and dry cleaning and the rainbow car wash there. It's pretty cool stuff These episodes are fun because there's I know there's people all over the country That love their little buildings to get shouted out in their towns totally The biff burger drive-in chain in clear water. This was right in that sort of middle of that era in 1956 Lots of googie inspired stuff there And then there's a shopping center the south gate shopping center in lakeland florida also mid to late 50s

Another great example. Yeah, you got to look up the biff burger Like look up biff burger 1956 and one of the big googie things they have is like their sign It's like different like different geometric structures like separate from one another and each one like holds a letter or a little message or something They're all really brightly colored. It's just really cool and neat-looking And we mentioned that great. Yeah, those are great signs. I'm looking at them now uh that great bank and In the middle of nowhere, georgia and alma georgia the alma exchange bank 1966 you really need to look this one up and imagine this in

um sort of rural south eastern georgia between Atlanta and jacksonville it is Really something else And there's a cool place right here a newer place In centennial olympic park in atlanta called googie burger And it's opened about 12 years ago in 2010 and it's a really cool Modern take on a googie style and it's it's awesome. I didn't even know it was there And then also chuck one of the other things, you know, we've been talking about things like dry cleaners and car washes and bowling alleys

Like it appeared in some like legit big structures like the Theme building the iconic building at lax that looks like a war of the world's ufo basically on stilts Um that is about as googie as it gets That when it's not like a dry cleaners. That's a super googie building. Yeah that one Um people probably you might have heard it called the encounter because it had a restaurant bar called the encounter in it But it is called the theme building and it was there when I was there and open And you know, it was kind of a fun thing to go and like grab a cocktail before you Pick someone up on an airport run and just kind of like drinking that vibe

for a half hour or so and then it closed in 2013 because There was always just a it was right there by the airport so Usually it was airport people But like you wouldn't go early enough if you were like flying somewhere Just to go to a restaurant outside the airport because it's not you know You can't check in and then go back out to the encounter And then going afterward like maybe I think once I might have picked someone up that had just come into town

Who had never been to LA and it's like hey, the first thing we'll do is go to the encounter But it was it was just sort of had a problem of no one quite new wind to go Right Because it was so tied to the airport You didn't want to go there if you had nothing to do at the airport because you didn't want to be in airport traffic Which is notoriously bad in LA. So it eventually kind of closed down because of this problem in 2013. It's pretty sad Yeah, it is a little sad, but it is super. It was a very inconvenient place for sure Uh, what about tomorrow land that I mentioned?

I mean tomorrow land everybody I don't want to say everybody but almost everybody's been to either tomorrow land at disney world or disney land And it's just like this retro future googie architecture It was at first and I didn't know this but apparently It was originally meant to mimic what what they thought it was going to look like in 1986 Yeah, no funny what the people of 1955 thought 86 would look like yeah, and I you know I took I mentioned not too long ago. I took my first visit to disney world since I was a kid recently and I was shocked how little things had changed

All throughout the park until I sort of stopped to think about it because disney people like they don't want anything different About that particular park they they're fine with like adding new things But like you don't go in and change tomorrow land And get rid of those cruddy race cars in favor of something better You just leave or the people mover you leave it alone. Yeah, and let's see. I agree with that I think that they should until it falls apart until the people mover like falls off of the the cable and Kills a bunch of people. Well, I think his disney Largely deals in the business of nostalgia. Definitely. That's why john hodgeman hates that place

Uh, what else do we have the twa flight center at jfk? Hey, uh, aro sarinan designed it and it's amazing So I don't we don't need to say anything else about it, but it was built in 1962 Just go to the curbed new york website and search for explore the twa terminal And it will it's this is amazing photo spread from years back from a photographer named max tui Who was granted access to this abandoned but totally preserved? 1962 Um

gooey Like like terminal for twa. It's the most amazing thing you'll ever see googie It is a googie. Yeah, it's a gooey. Did I? Well the floor is made of molasses Well that uh, that isn't that the same spot that they have now opened the new twa twa hotel? Yes Yeah, because again, it was like perfectly preserved I don't know how they did it, but I think somebody was like this thing. We can't do anything with this It's just too amazing. We can't not mention the space needle in seattle. Yeah, uh, probably they're most favorite

I don't know what seattle people think of it. I don't know if they're tired of it or what But it is there, you know, kind of one of their iconic buildings. Just ask frazier crane Uh, it's right there in the skyline and those opening credits, but it was built in 1961 for their world fair Uh, and uh, seattle hotel executive named edward e carlson gave it its iconic name And its chief engineer was a gentleman named john menacean who actually worked for nasa and designed

rocket gantries Pretty cool. Yeah, like definitely legitimizes the space needle for sure So what happened to googie? Well, like we said it dated itself and googie came along technically in 1949, but really it started to take off in the mid fifties say And it was based on like like you're saying techno optimism of the post-war war two economic boom And us getting to space and just trying new technology and we actually did all that stuff Like those promises of the future actually came true pretty quick like we ended up on the moon in 1969

And once we got there humanity was like we've been there. We've done that And like that whole that techno optimism like kind of faded pretty quickly because it became every day in commonplace And since googie was the architecture Associated with that that future that now would become every day in commonplace. It got dated. I think that's Kind of sad, but also hysterical. Yeah that like When people walked on the moon like that next week the dry cleaner sat down with a designer to build their new dry cleaner

It was like they were like, well, what do you want to do? Just build me a dry cleaning. Yeah, you know, he was like, I'm ruined We've been to the moon. Who cares? I just want to clean clothes. I saw one of the things that really signaled the death knell Uh, maybe not earliest, but pretty early on was that mcdonald's radically changed its design from parabolas and Up swept, you know angular roofs to houses like a brick house with a mansard roof That that really iconic 70s and 80s mcdonald look They look like pizza huts that the whole restaurant style was all the same. Yeah. Yeah, it was very close Although I looked at a pizza huts roof is different kind. It's not a mansard roof. I can't remember what it's called

But but yes, it is very similar and it was meant to evoke home, which is totally different from like a You know a coffee shop that starts taking up toward the taking off up toward the sky Like this it was a different feel and a different vibe and it also tied into the ecology movement, right? Yeah, I mean, I think you know, uh One might argue that some of this googie stuff is can be wasteful in terms of materials To build a roof that extends, you know 60 feet to a point into the sky when you just need a regular roof really So I think tastes sort of were tamed down a little bit using more

Sort of sensible materials, I think played a part Going to the outer space played a part all this stuff and like, you know, sort of any Thing that doesn't end up being a classic design. It's gonna come and go Especially one that's kind of radical like this So it you know, it was bound to have its moment and then leave and then be looked back upon with fond eyes years later And that's what's happened largely. Sadly During, you know, of course the 80s a lot of these buildings in la and the south end were demolished But toward the end of the 80s

certainly with the publication of the 86 book from Hess Googie colon 50 coffee shop 50s coffee shop architecture that sort of helped Um, reignite like an appreciation for these buildings and this architecture and more and more were protected that had not been demolished Yeah, and they're still being demolished. I saw that something like a third of them are gone now already, which is really high Um, as far as demolition goes for a specific kind of architecture, but they are getting protected more and more, which I think is good Totally, I saw one other thing that led to the demise of googie Um, so googie design was meant to attract the eyes of southern california drivers as they were passing by So that they would turn in and be like, yeah, I could go for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie

Right, or I could get my shirt dry cleaned right now. Who knows? So that's what I was designed for but then in 1955 the highway act started Building highways rather than surface streets. So people weren't on those surface streets anymore and they were going way faster And they were going faster than googie architecture could catch their attention and that that was a big part of it too Yeah, I mean that's uh as evidence in our root 66 podcast and to bring it full circle that uh abandoned googie gas station on route 66 that we shot at No one stopped in there for gas. It was closed. Yeah, that's true. That's what happens. The highway killed it

Highway killed it Uh, you got anything else? I got nothing Uh, if you want to know more about googie architecture, just go spend some time looking up googie buildings. It's a lot of fun They're just so colorful. Uh, and since I said they're colorful. It's time for listener mail Uh, I'm gonna call this what will it be the first of two appalachian trail emails and by the way I'm doing the georgia portion next spring Oh nice, man. I'm doing it me and my friend eddie and my friend clay

Mm-hmm have all dedicated to do it. And so this is not only a personal life goal that I never accomplished but a personal fitness goal because I can't go out there right now and do that in the shape I'm in and so Losing weight it's never worked like oh, I got that wedding this fall. I need to look good for it Yeah, that stuff never worked for me, but I can't do this Like and be successful Without getting in shape like I will die on the side of a mountain

You really need to read into the woods Because one of the characters is exactly in that same position All right, so it's a health goal and just a life goal and we're gonna do it next march So wait a minute. Wait a minute. You're going with eddie as in eddie the forest strangler eddie eddie I don't know if that's such a good idea chuck We're gonna start in north carolina at the border and go sobo to springer And act like we hiked the whole thing When we get at the end nice work, so it's pretty cool. Anyway, I've been getting a lot of great emails and true stuff

You should know fashion Unplanned but very serendipitously that episode was released on naked hike day. Yeah We didn't know that was gonna happen Nope, but sometimes it works out that way. Yeah, so this is from this is a really cool one from a man named arthur sparrow Uh, oh, I wish she had to put in a pronunciation guide Uh, you're esic. That's what I'm gonna say. Okay, or you're etching Hey guys a long time lister and I'm elated about this at episode because it changed my life It was the best crazy thing I ever decided to do when I threw hiked it

It's been about a decade battling opioid addiction Previous to my through hike in 2016 And when I left I knew I needed to change many aspects of my life Uh, I'm a college grad from a good family had a good job But I was just self-destructing and the at changed all that the community and the trail where everything I needed It helped me save my life from a downward spiral when it supplied hope for me when I needed it most Uh, simultaneously it showed me how much we are truly capable of when we support one another on our journey Uh, six months and three years later still opioid free

Uh, I started my own business after doing my hike doing work that I believe in and now I'm living and loving my journey on and off the trail I hope there are a few people like myself that heard your episode and like me Decide to do something crazy and change your lives for the better Will be the best crazy thing that you ever did too. I can assure them of that all the best gentlemen Keep up the great work and I got permission from arthur to read this He's the owner and operator of green team junk And uh

Way to go arthur. That's amazing. I'm so glad that you got it together and I'm glad the at was a part of that experience It's really great. Yeah, congratulations arthur. That's amazing and thank you for the email I wonder if green team is a reference to that will ferrell and michael riley and um adam mckay like short What was that? It was called green team I don't why does that ring a bell because you've seen it. It was it made the rounds It was viral like many years ago. Just look up green team. It's crazy And I think uh, he's I think I said he was in the sacramento area

Okay, it looks like it's recycling and we're using Uh and hauling away stuff for people Nice, but yeah, that's what I gathered like green junk removal. Right. That's what I figured I mean the guy hiked the at for Pete's sake. Yeah, that's not brown team junk. All right All right, well, thanks again arthur fantastic Congratulations and thanks for writing in and if you want to be like arthur and share your personal successes with us We want to hear them. You can send us an email to stuff podcast at iheart radio dot com Stuff you should know is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iheart radio app

Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows Hey, i'm lance bass host of the new iheart podcast frosted tips with lance bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would lance bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do you've come to the right place because i'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boybander Each week to guide you through life tell everybody you everybody About my new podcast and make sure to listen So we'll never ever have to say bye. Bye. Bye. Bye

Listen to frosted tips with lance bass on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts I'm munga shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe You can find in major league baseball international banks k-pop groups even the white house But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject Something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed Whether you're a skeptic or a believer give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too Listen to skyline drive on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, it's bobby bones from the bobby cast

We are nationals most listen to music podcasts in-depth interviews with your favorite country artists Plus the biggest songwriters and producers in natural all from the comfort of my own home So it gets a little more laid back They're sharing stories behind the biggest songs and country music and personal stories that you will not hear anywhere else So if you love country music, I think you will love this podcast Listen to the bobby cast on iheart radio apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts