Googie

Googie is an American architectural and design style that emerged in Southern California in the late 1940s and flourished through the 1950s and early 1960s. The term Googie, named after the Googie’s coffee shop in West Hollywood, became a catchall label for a futuristic, space-age aesthetic linked to postwar car culture. The style is known for bold, angular forms, upswept or cantilevered rooflines, geometric shapes, and the use of glass, steel, and neon.

Common motifs draw from jet propulsion, atomic-age imagery, and space exploration, including starbursts, boomerangs, chevrons, and other dynamic, graphic accents. Googie was widely applied to commercial buildings such as diners, coffee shops, gas stations, motels, and strip centers, with dramatic canopies, oversized signs, and vivid color schemes designed to grab the attention of passing motorists.

The movement reflected postwar optimism about technology, mobility, and the future, and its visual language aimed to communicate modernity at a glance. Googie design declined by the late 1960s as tastes shifted and costs rose, but its exuberant forms influenced later mid-century revivals and retro-futurist aesthetics. Notable examples are predominantly associated with roadside architecture in Southern California and the American Southwest, including iconic signage and building forms that helped define the era’s commercial streets.