Googie

Googie (also populuxe ) is a form of architecture and design that developed in southern California in the late 1940s and persisted into the mid 1960s . Googie has a very futuristic style and was heavily influenced by the American car culture of the time, the still in its infancy American space travel and the atomic age.

The origin of the term googie originated in 1949, when the architect John Lautner designed the Hollywood café “Googies” on Sunset Boulevard (sold in 1989), which had distinctive architectural features. The name "Googie" itself was the nickname of the wife Lillian of the cafe owner Mortimer C. Burton. Lautner has since been considered one of the best-known representatives of commercial googie architecture.

A typical and probably best-known design example for Googie is the lava lamp (originally "Astrolampe"). The design of the Space Needle in Seattle , completed in 1962, is also influenced by the Googie style. Googie architecture was created with the aim of attracting attention through emphasized modernism. One example was the California drive-in restaurant Johnie’s Broiler in Downey near Los Angeles . In 1961, Los Angeles International Airport erected the Theme Building in a distinct Googie style, which has been an icon of the architectural direction ever since. Googie was decisive for the appearance of the animated television series The Jetsons from Hanna-Barbera Studios, which was broadcast from 1962 .