Googies

Alright, lets get down to talking about buildings. A lot of what drives the content of this blog will be current events, and our first few topics have been more oriented to urbanism and the texture of the city. But this blog will operate at all scales, from regional analyses to the missing kitchen door in my rental apartment (more on that later…).

So let’s dial down to a bit of a finer grain.

Here’s a single building being considered for landmark status in Seattle. The Post-Intelligencer has a good write-up as well.

Originally a Manning’s Cafeteria, the Seattle building is a fair example of L.A. inspired googie (not google!) architecture. They are not hard to find along most main arteries. As just one example, here’s a bowling alley in Santa Monica that I photographed this morning on my way to get bagels:

Bay Shore Lanes in Santa Monica.

There are of course lots of these types of buildings in Detroit and especially in the older suburbs just north of 8 Mile. We are so used to many of them that we don’t really notice them until they’re gone.