Alan Hess and Googie Architecture

Reviews continue to expand as a literary form.

Book reviews have been around for centuries, and music reviews have a similarly long history. But there are lots of other things about which reviews are written. Almost anything that can be purchased can be reviewed. It's why such sites as Epinions.com has such enduring popularity and usefulness.

Alan Hess is a critic/reviewer. His specialty? Architecture. He is an architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News and writes architecture columns for Silicon Valley Life. He's also the author of several books.

This week at Book Help Web, we added a profile of this writer as well as a review of one of his books. In this book, he explains how a coffee shop with a whimsical name became a style of architecture. The name? Googie. The style? Fifties coffee shop architecture.

When the style was first unveiled at a corner coffee shop, architects hated it. Restaurant owners, however, loved its attention-grabbing style (think anything you see in Jimmy Neutron). Two partners fresh out of college took a hold of the style and began refining and perfecting it.

Want to learn more? Pick up Alan Hess' book. Or give yourself a nibble at this site.

posted by Book Help Web Editorial Team at 11:10 AM |