Roofs are commonly steeply raked, multi-level, and intersecting with windows set into their triangular front-facing gables. These homes' interiors are often open-plan with built-in cabinetry incorporated into large fireplaces, such as benches on either side. [24] McAllister got his start designing fashionable restaurants in Southern California, which led to a series of Streamline Moderne drive-ins during the 1930s; though he did not have formal training as an architect, he had been offered a scholarship at the architecture school at the University of Pennsylvania because of his skill. Googie-style signs usually boast sharp and bold angles, intended to suggest the aerodynamic features of a rocket ship. [7] Similar architectural styles are also referred to as Populuxe or Doo Wop.[8][9]. Meant to inspire awe in the observer, the intensely detailed and textural stucco work of Churrigueresque buildings often feature broken pediments, inverted columns, scrolls, garlands, and layer upon layer of curved surfaces. Red brick exteriors are common but always partnered with pastel-colored stonework or decorative painted wood. Typical detailing includes simple Greek or Roman-style columns or pediments and square chimney stacks. Thus, they are well-suited to areas with sweltering climates and occasional rainstorms. Victorian homes were beloved by Los Angeles' elite in the late 1800s. Notable practitioners: Albert C. Martin; Stiles O. Clements, While Southern California is rich in architectural variation, Googieexemplifying the collision of car culture and the Jet Age futurism that bloomed after World War IIis arguably the signature style of the region. From heritage buildings to modern marvels, Los Angeles is dotted with architectural landmarks. [22] According to Hess, commercial architecture was influenced by the desires of the mass audience. Quiz: Which neighborhood should you live in? During the 1950s, space travel became a reality for the first time in history. With the increasing prosperity of the United States during the 1950s, however, American designers celebrated this new affluence with optimistic designs. It is a truly American style, originating in the 20s but becoming popular from the 40s to 70s. [9], The term "doo-wop" was used by New Jersey's Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts during the early 1990s to describe the unique, space-age architectural style. America's interest in spaceflight had a significant influence on the unique style of Googie architecture. [14][15], Though Haskell coined the term Googie and was an advocate of modernism, he did not appreciate the Googie aesthetic. Get the latest real estate market report. [21] Googie architecture exploited this trend by incorporating energy into its design with elements such as the boomerang, diagonals, atomic bursts and bright colors. Traditional architecture is an eclectic, modern style of design. Roof terraces and balconies are sometimes seen, and there is a definite focus on integrating exterior and interior spaces. Daring to use modern materials such as steel, poured concrete, and large panes of glass, modernist architecture proved both practical to build and very fashionable. Cape Cod architecture is one of the most iconic American house styles. Modern versions of this style usually keep the low-angled, projecting eaves and large porches, whilst substituting more modern materials, exteriors with light colors, and additional upper floor space. Interiors can contain extensive hardwood paneling, grand fireplaces, and sweepingly elegant staircases. [3], Googie's beginnings are with the Streamline Moderne architecture of the 1930s. Victorian is something of a catch-all term for a number of styles, including Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Romanesque, Stick Style, and Folk-Victorian, amongst others. The accents on this cottage in Los Angeles add a visual pop. The most quintessentially private and exclusive hotel, delivering low-key elegance since 1946. Cottage styles often incorporate idiosyncratic layouts, cozier rooms, and curving roof eaves sometimes finished with brickwork or mock-thatch. For over a century, The Beverly Hills Hotel has been the spot for Hollywoods brightest lights, the ultimate beacon of glamour. They tend to incorporate up-to-the-minute innovations in design and materials as well as integrating the latest technologies for security, entertainment, and communication. Their heyday was cut short by World War II, after which higher density apartment buildings became the preferred model. In 1908, the first film was shot entirely in Los Angeles. Wildwood's high-rise hotel district has been the first in the US to enforce "Doo Wop" design guidelines for new construction. [40] Despite the loss of these and the original Googie's in Hollywood, other Googie coffee shops including Norms Restaurants,[41] Johnie's Coffee Shop,[42] and the Wich Stand[43] have received historic designations. With booming stock markets in the 1920s came a revival of this English Tudor and Medieval inspired style. The Traditional style is typified by simple, unadorned facades and low or intermediate pitched roofs, usually with at least one front-facing gable or hip and a large chimney. Front-facing gables sometimes incorporate a catslide roof, where a curving interior slope contrasts with steep, straight eaves on the outside. The style is based upon British townhouses but substitutes narrow clapboard siding or stone for the brick-and-mortar construction you might commonly find in the UK. Defining features include classical symmetry, mansard roofs, oversize Pullman doors, curving staircases, elaborate moldings, oval windows, and pavilions.Notable practitioners: Roland Coate; Paul R. Williams; John Elgin Woolf, After World War II, Los Angeles faced a housing shortage the likes of which it had never before seen. Eastlake Victorian. The common elements that generally distinguish Googie from other forms of architecture are: The boomerang shape was another design element that captured movement. The origin of the name Googie dates to 1949, when architect John Lautner designed the Googies Coffee Shop in Hollywood, which had distinct architectural characteristics. Googie was also characterized by Space Age designs symbolic of motion, such as boomerangs, flying saucers, diagrammatic atoms and parabolas, and free-form designs such as "soft" parallelograms and an artist's palette motif. [47] That simplicity may have represented the Depression era's forced frugality. In the 1940s, Frank Lloyd Wright, in particular, popularized a more accessible and site-specific style of Modern architecture, which softened some of the brutalism of earlier incarnations. [36] By the mid 1960s the novelty was starting to wane and a backlash rose up against the flashy style. The architecture of that region, which spread quickly throughout New England, reflects this climate. Googie architecture (/ui/ GOO-ghee[1]) is a type of futurist architecture influenced by car culture, jets, the Space Age, and the Atomic Age. Streamline Moderne. Books are arranged in chronological order by year of publication: Preservation groups working to save Googie architecture include, Mid-20th-century American futurist architectural style, "Googie" redirects here. A sub-genre, Minimal Traditional, alludes to smaller homes that follow the core principles of Traditional design. Contemporary homes adhere to the principles of modern architecture. Mid-Century Modern and Ranch-style homes dominated the scene. Notable practitioners: Arthur Benton; Arthur Page Brown; John Byers, Became Southern Californias pre-eminent architectural style in the wake of the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-1917. However, since the citys 2005 adoption of the Small Lot Ordinance, their modern-day counterparts have been springing up like weeds, but with one major difference being that todays units are for sale, not rent. The beachfront resort town of Wildwood, New Jersey, features an array of motel designs, colorfully described by such sub-styles as Vroom, Pu-Pu Platter, Phony Colonee and more. These homes can be comfortable without being showy, although grander examples do exist, such as Greene and Greenes Gamble House in Pasadena. Lewis Bradbury, a gold-mining millionaire, initially commissioned architect Sumner Hunt, and later George H. Wyman. A steeply gabled or hipped roof is usually tiled in grey slate. [13] The name Googie became a rubric for the architectural style when editor Douglas Haskell of House and Home magazine and architectural photographer Julius Shulman were driving through Los Angeles one day.

Named after the coastal Massachusetts region, where this architecture is ubiquitous, it is actually based on a British Georgian style from the 18th century.

Spanish homes are ubiquitous in Los Angeles. Decorative arches and shady terraces are common features, as are projecting porches over heavy wooden front doors. Nowadays, only about 350 vintage bungalow courts remain, with these holdouts increasingly threatened by rising property values. Although there are French Colonial, Dutch Colonial, and other Colonial styles inspired by the domestic architecture prevalent amongst those nations, American Colonial refers to the sub-set based on British homes of the pre-Civil War period. He designed over 3,000 buildings worldwide, around 2,000 of which were in LA County. Hess argues that the reason for this was that the vision of the future of the 1930s was obsolete by 1950 and thus the architecture evolved along with it. She greets you like a movie star from the moment you pass the iconic signage, step onto the signature red carpet and enter the grand lobby. Another remaining example of Googie architecture still in operation is the main terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1958. They are usually built over one main story with a smaller second story often incorporate into the roof with a dormer in the front elevation. Windows on bungalows tend to be double-hung with single panes and simple wooden casements. [38] The publication of Googie by Alan Hess in 1986 inspired a new appreciation for the style. Heres how to identify them: Spanish-Moorish: Signature elements of this style include horseshoe or ogee arches, ornamental stone and wood carved with geometric or floral motifs, and decorative tile, as seen at Malibus Adamson House, the Andalusia apartments in West Hollywood, and at the Shrine Auditorium. [3] The architectural community rarely appreciated or accepted Googie, considering it too flashy and vernacular for academic praise,[35] and so the architecture of the 1970s, especially the International Style, abandoned Googie. The American Craftsman style is an indigenous form of domestic architecture based loosely upon the 19th century English Arts and Crafts movement. The boom period for this type of housing was 1700 to 1850, and a revival took place from the 1920s to the 1950s. These home exteriors are often surfaced in more than one material, with metal contrasting with wood or painted stucco. Spanish-Moorish. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first human-made satellite to achieve Earth orbit. LAs interpretation of the theatrical style can be seen at St. Vincent de Paul church on West Adams, Downtowns Million Dollar Theatre, and at Chapman Plaza in Koreatown. [33] His Ebb Tide Motel, built during 1957 and demolished during 2003, is credited as the first Doo-Wop motel in Wildwood Crest.[34]. With car ownership increasing, cities no longer had to be centered on a central downtown but could spread out to the suburbs, where business hubs could be interspersed with residential areas. Chateauesque, as its name suggests, is a grander and more formal look, borrowing from French medieval castle design. Much is made of water features such as fountains and ornamental ponds, a particular Andalusian influence, as is the repeating arched detailing on eaves and porches. The word Victorian actually refers to an era, the reign of Queen Victoria, which lasted from 1837 to 1901, and it encompasses a wide variety of styles.

Built between 1919 and 1921 for American oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, the design was inspired by seventh century Mayan temples and paved the way for groundbreaking architectural design. These houses tend to be less severe in their aesthetic than some classically modernist homes, with which they share key features such as open-plan interior layouts, blocky construction, flat roofs, and subtle landscaping. Heres a guide to 16 styles you may encounter around the city on any given day. Comfortable open-plan interiors were softened with designer furnishings, and these homes were often intended to be admired as works of art and showcases for design collections. Notable practitioners: Claud Beelman; Leland Bryant; John and Donald Parkinson, A relatively short-lived style, Streamline Moderne buildings paid homage to the spirit of progress and travel by borrowing the aerodynamic curves of 1930s luxury trains, planes, and ocean liners. The term Googie comes from the now-defunct Googies Coffee Shop in Hollywood[6] designed by John Lautner. A standard detail is the decorative knee braces holding the extended eaves, from which hanging flower baskets are often hung. Notable practitioners: Armet and Davis; Martin Stern, Jr.; John Lautner; Pereira and Associates. The observatorys director Ed Krupp says, It is the most visited public observatory in the world and has put more peoples eyeballs to the universe through a telescope than anywhere else on the planet., 2800 East Observatory Road, Los Angeles, CA 90027, Stahl House is one of Los Angeles most famous mid-century homes, seemingly floating above the city from the Hollywood Hills. It was used structurally in place of a pillar or aesthetically as a stylized arrow. This marked the beginning of the so-called "Space Race". As time passed, Googie came to reflect a very 1950s and 60s view of what the future meant. At the turn of the 20th century, Hollywood was nothing more than a quiet farming community filled with farmhouses, adobe huts, and orange groves. Burton. Sustainable materials and optimized energy consumption give many of these homes a much-reduced carbon footprint. This style originated in British colonial India - the word bungalow comes from the Gujarati word Bangala, meaning "house in the Bengal style." By 1915, the major motion picture companies had moved from New York to Hollywood, kicking off a wave of residential development that continued during the Roaring 20s. Period Revival style homes like Spanish, Mediterranean, Italianate, and Tudor dominated the scene during this time. The style later became widely known as part of the mid-century modern style, elements of which represent the populuxe aesthetic,[4][5] as in Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal. Midcentury modern. Mission Revival. To house the San Diego exposition, architects Bertram Goodhue and Carleton Winslow designed a campus of buildings that blended elements of Mission Revival, Mexican, Spanish Baroque/Churrigueresque, and Islamic styles. Cantilevered structures, acute angles, illuminated plastic paneling, freeform boomerang and artist's palette shapes and cutouts, and tailfins on buildings marked Googie architecture, which was contemptible to some architects of then-current High Art Modernism, but had defenders during the post-Modern period at the end of the 20th century. The businessman Griffith J. Griffith donated the building to the public in 1896 so visitors could experience the magic of astronomy. The large covered front porches of these Craftsman-style homes are a crucial attribute, emphasizing relaxation and welcome. These homes are not for shrinking violets and definitely make a bold architectural statement. For example, thousands of small, single-family homes were built in less than a year near Santa Monica Airport to house the workforce of 70,000 who manufactured and assembled aircraft there. Inside, ceilings often feature exposed interior beams in a rustic style. This new trend required owners and architects to develop a visual imagery so customers would recognize it from the road. By closing this message, you consent to our cookies on this device in accordance with our. Notable practitioners: Charles and Henry Greene; Ernest Batchelder; Arthur and Alfred Heineman, Seen in Downtowns temples of finance, commerce, and law, Beaux Arts is a classical style characterized by Greco-Roman elements: columns, arches, vaults, and domes. Classic locations for Googie style buildings are Miami Beach, Florida, where secondary commercial structures were adapted from the resort style of Morris Lapidus and other hotel designers; the first phase of Las Vegas, Nevada; and their birthplace of Southern California. If you drove through Los Feliz without knowing its history, youd hardly be able to tell the significant role the Santa Monicas quality of life ranks high, making it one of Southern Californias most coveted places to live. Instead of one main store downtown, businesses now had multiple stores in suburban areas. [11][12], Googies was located at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights in Los Angeles but was demolished in 1989. Sliding doors back onto shady gardens and palm trees are a natural fit for Spanish Colonial gardens.

Arches and curves add geometric interest to these homes exteriors, which often reveal their interior structure. Will your building hold up in a major earthquake? Ranch-style homes have a low and wide footprint with gradually-sloping roofs and usually just one floor. As Hess notes, beginning during the 1970s, commercial buildings were meant to blend into the urban environment and not attract attention. Its name comes from a magazine founded in 1901 by furniture-maker Gustav Stickley, The Craftsman. Art Deco. as part of the war effort. Stonework window surrounds, louvered shutters, and delicate wrought iron touches are other signatures of this style. Landscaping in the grander residences in this style might incorporate English-flavored elements such as rose-beds, walled gardens, and fruit trees. Asymmetry of design is a key feature, with idiosyncratic and cozy room layouts, often built around a central chimney. One of the earliest organizations in the country that advocated for the preservation of Googie architecture was the Los Angeles Conservancy Modern Committee, which was formed in 1984 in response to the demolition of Ship's coffee shop in Westwood and Tiny Naylor's Drive-In in Hollywood. Prevalent styles found today in neighborhoods such as Angelino Heights or West Adams include Queen Anne, Eastlake and Folkor some combination of multiple styles.

However, through the efforts of citizens, the city of Downey, and historic preservationists, the structure was rebuilt and reopened in 2009 as a Bob's Big Boy restaurant. Beginning in the 1920s with futurist movements such as the Bauhaus group and European architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius as well as Americans including Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, the style attempted to blend sculptural form and idealistic function like never before. Front doors may be wooden with period detailing and rounded tops containing small glass panels. The style is intended to evoke a fairy-tale feeling, where imagination runs rampant. Transposed to the American colonies, the style has been simplified and rendered practical for local materials and climates. What city boasts a more diverse spread of architecture than Los Angeles? The backdrop of several movies, including the original Blade Runner, 500 Days of Summer and The Artist, the Bradbury Building is one of the oldest commercial properties in Los Angeles, dating back to 1893. Popular in America between 1915 and 1945, French-inspired styles were popularized by soldiers returning home from the World Wars. It was revived as a style in the UK in the latter half of the 19th century, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement. It's an incredibly flexible style, and modification is common. Inside, sweeping staircases and high-ceilinged interiors add to the splendor of this variant.

[17], The new smaller suburban drive-in restaurants were essentially architectural signboards advertising the business to vehicles on the road. Drive-in services such as diners, movie theaters and filling stations built with the same principles developed to serve the new American city. 9641 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Each location is uniquely designed, featuring oblique shapes, color, and large geometric roofs.[45][46]. These stylistic conventions represented American society's fascination with Space Age themes and marketing emphasis on futuristic designs. Thinking of selling your home? Often prized by Hollywood stars and producers, these comfortable but charming homes are characterized by earthy styles, stucco exteriors, red-tiled roofs, exterior stairways, and verandas. One of the remaining Googie-styled drive-in restaurants, Harvey's Broiler (Paul Clayton, 1958), later Johnie's Broiler in Downey, California, was partially demolished in 2006.

Modernism is now, paradoxically, almost 100 years old. Eaves tend to extend beyond the walls offering rain protection. [30] Haskell's third tenet for Googie was that it have more than one thememore than one structural system. A hidden sanctuary amongst the wooded hills, untouched by the clamour of life beyond the gates of Bel-Air. Windows often are tall with shutters on either side, and where roofs are sloped, the angle tends to be shallow.