Googie Style: A Bizarre Showcase of History, Architecture, and AI

Introduction
Googie Architecture: It’s an irreverent exuberant style of bold shapes, retro aesthetics, and craziness for the sake of craziness. It is a style where buildings themselves become signs turning mundane diners, motels, and car washes into architectural statement pieces. Eye catching. Outlandish. Alien. It’s in The Jetsons. It greets arrivals in Las Vegas. It imparts character throughout the neighborhoods of LA. You can find it leaping from 50s drive ins, scattered about US interstates, or sometimes even defining city skylines.

Additionally, Architectural Digest really dives into the history in their explanation of how the American diner got its signature aesthetic (largely thanks to Googie style) and the origins of the name Googie style iteslf:
As noted in the video above, Googie style is all about grabbing attention. It started from the humble beginnings of roadside eateries with unusual forms and colorful mid-century modern flourishes, then evolved to include experimental forms designed for an auto-crazed country, and finally peaked with an optimistic look to the future with sky-is-the-limit forms and an almost alien space-age aesthetic…. Peak Googie.
But if you didn’t come here to learn architecture history and really just want to see some buildings that make you feel like its 2019 and you’re storming Area 51, then without further ado, let’s take a road trip through the absurd, alien architecture that AI image generators like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion (via the platform Playground AI) have to offer. Sometimes AI images can be utterly bizarre, so let’s lean into that. Enjoy the ridiculousness.
Googie Land – A Bizarre Road Trip













Googie Style: It’s Not So Much a Reference…. It’s Irreverence.


About the Author
AcanthusAlchemist
Designer and engineer exploring the intersection of AI, architecture, and urbanism.
email: acanthus@pixelstoplans.com
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