{"id":129,"date":"2011-02-17T23:39:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T07:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2013-10-25T07:00:51","modified_gmt":"2013-10-25T14:00:51","slug":"005-alan-hess-champion-of-the-googie-introducing-the-patron-saints-of-the-lower-modernisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"005. Alan Hess, Champion of the Googie. Introducing: The Patron Saints of the Lower Modernisms."},"content":{"rendered":"

The Patron Saints of the Lower Modernisms are those individuals who have lowered the bar for what qualifies for membership in the sanctified realm of Modernism proper, and thereby expanded the domain of what is considered Modernist. I praise them for their efforts and hope they can take such a characterization rightly as a compliment. These thinkers and geniuses have helped to democratize design culture, making it more diverse and inclusive. The Patron Saints of the Lower Modernisms is Architecture Burger\u2019s answer to the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Alan Hess<\/a> rose to prominence with the 1985 publication of Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture<\/em>, rehabilitating \u201cGoogie\u201d, which had been a term of derision for the exuberant, populist modernism of the best 1950s coffee shops and bowling alleys, and offering a spirited and convincing defense of a then-maligned style. The 2004 republication, Googie Redux<\/a><\/em>, opens with an anecdote of Hess\u2019s epiphany while then a UCLA architecture student eating dinner with Bruce Goff at Ship\u2019s Westwood coffee shop in 1978 \u2013 Hess\u2019s eyes were opened to the glories of an architecture which at that time must have been unutterably taboo within the academies at a time when Michael Graves\u2019s work was sexy and exciting. I am a sucker for epiphanies, as the epiphany is to consciousness what the diagram is to design.<\/p>\n

Googie Redux <\/em>serves as one of the best guidebooks of architecture in Los Angeles, pointing the way to the landmarks of what is now obviously one of Los Angeles\u2019s finest architectural movements; but it also functions as a conventional history of an architectural movement, establishing the key individuals and the development of the style in much the same way as a book about any other Modernist substyle would do, such as, for example, Futurism or the Case Study House Program or the New Brutalism.<\/p>\n

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Hess sought to legitimize Googie as a proper form of endeavor within the Discipline of Architecture. The book\u2019s analysis of the best Googie projects makes repeated analogy to the work of High Modernist architects, showing that the High Modernists engaged in the same sorts of compromises as Googie\u2019s Low Modernist heroes, while alternately (and successfully) demonstrating the comparative creativity, rigor and integrity of the Googie monuments; e.g., \u201cthe commercial nature of the coffee shop did not corrupt the modern design principles that guided its design. Though academic Modernism was never impressed with Coffee Shop Modern and its liberal definition of Modernism, the style fulfilled Modernisms\u2019s aims (126).\u201d<\/p>\n

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Whereas the designers of most Lower Modernisms projects remain anonymous, the great Googie coffee shops are renowned, and we know the names and stories of their heroic architects: Wayne McAllister, Martin Stern, Jr., and the peerless partnership of Arm\u00e9t and Davis. Hess has emphasized the relationship between their modes of practice and those of the organicist wing of proper Modernism such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Goff, and John Lautner, who himself designed the Googie\u2019s Coffee Shop that lent its name to the movement \u2013 architects near the margin, but whose work clearly falls within the Discipline of Architecture. As a result, the Googie style has effectively taken its place within the succession of Modernist schools.<\/p>\n

Hess\u2019s triumph is the LoMos project\u2019s loss, as Googie is now nearly too legitimate a form of Modernism to be considered within the intended scope of the Lower Modernisms project. A goal of the LoMos is to look closely at that which is typically considered beneath consideration, and our favorite coffee shops are no longer that. Hess\u2019s analysis extends use of the term \u201cGoogie\u201d to include not just the high quality monuments (such as Arm\u00e9t and Davis\u2019s coffee shops) but also to buildings in a similar style but of lower quality.<\/p>\n

Though the LoMos project is intended to expand the scope of inquiry into the Modern and modernizing, I do not wish to erase the distinctions between high and low. This distinction is critical to the Lower Modernisms project. Distinctions are the architect\u2019s stock in trade \u2013 they are to judgments what the epiphany is to consciousness. Quality matters. I prefer to draw a line in my use of the term between the righteous Googie and the inferior quality Googie-inspired liquor stores and taco stands. I adjudge the term Googie to apply only to the highest, of greatest integrity, forms of the art. This characterization also forms my response to what could be a Frequently Asked Question, \u201cIsn\u2019t the Lower Modernisms just another name for the style already called \u2018Googie?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Patron Saints of the Lower Modernisms are those individuals who have lowered the bar for what qualifies for membership in the sanctified realm of Modernism proper, and thereby expanded the domain of what is considered Modernist. I praise them for their efforts and hope they can take such a characterization rightly as a compliment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6,23,5,11,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lomo.architectureburger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}