Airplane Service Station, Knoxville, Tennessee- then | and now… | Big Duck Store, Flanders, New York. 1930. |
Bondurant Pharmacy (Lexington), Lexington, Kentucky- built in 1975 in the shape of a giant mortar and pestle. | The Gallon Measure Buchanan, NY |
Shell Service Station (Winston-Salem), North Carolina |
Wadham’s Oil and Grease Company of Milwaukee Service stations, Wisconsin. | Teapot Dome Service Station, Zillah, Washington | The original Brown Derby in Los Angeles, California, built in 1926 |
The Longaberger Company headquarters in Newark, Ohio | New York-New York Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas | |
Fantastic architecture is an American building fad or style designed to catch attention and make a building stand out from the competition. It largely developed in the early 20th Century after the introduction of the car. Examples of fantastic architecture, also known as exotic architecture, include filling and service stations, motels and retail establishments. This architectural style, in some instances, is a lesser quality “built” version of Andy Warhol’s commercial artwork. This style also foreshadowed trends in fast food restaurant design, such as McDonald’s golden arches.
These structures take the form of airplanes, tepees, pyramids, castles, and even a mortar & pestle. Where more established architectural styles are integrated into Fantastic architecture, such as the use of a Japanese pagodas, the style is more accurately called Fantastic rather than Japanese due to the juxtaposition of use with style. Wadham’s Oil Company’s pagoda-style filling stations are an example of this. In the study of Art History and Architecture this is related to novelty architecture in which a structure is built in an unusual shape to attract attention and serve as a landmark in this case for product identification. Later McDonald’s exploited a similar shape for the design of their restaurants for the same purpose. In the 1930’s this intent by TEXACO resulted in their hiring the Industrial Designer Walter Dorwin Teague to redesign their service stations into an architectural profile that could be recognized even at a distance. His design however with minimalist lines, lattice fenestration and canopy over the gas pumps and entrance resembling a simplified “porte cochere” were more of a utilitarian nature than one of imaginative associations. However it was indeed a recognizable image for the company which continued to use architectural design as part of their corporate image into the 1960’s which by then utilized an open plan design with rusticated ashlar exterior finish. Teague as well designed the company logo for TEXACO in the 1930’s of the round sign with red star on a field of white and a green “T” for Texas in the center. He also inspired the use of the fireman’s hat as a corporate symbol for their various grades of gasoline such as “Fire Chief”. Examples of Fantastic-style structures References Links Airplane Service Station Website |
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Novelty architecture
Novelty architecture is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes as a novelty, such as advertising, notoriety as a landmark, or simple eccentricity of the owner or architect. Many examples of novelty architecture take the form of buildings that resemble the products sold inside to attract drive-by customers. Others are attractions all by themselves, such as giant animals, fruits, and vegetables, or replicas of famous buildings. And others are merely unusual shapes or made of unusual building materials. Some hotel casinos on the Las Vegas Strip can be considered novelty architecture, including the pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel and the New York-New York Hotel & Casino, a building designed to look like the New York City skyline. Novelty architecture is also used extensively in amusement parks such as Disneyland to fit their playful and sometimes retro theme. Programmatic architecture Programmatic (also known as mimetic or mimic) architecture is characterized by constructions in the forms of objects not normally associated with buildings, such as characters, animals, people or household objects. There may be an element of caricature or a cartoonish element associated with the architecture. In the 1930s, as automobile travel became popular in the United States, one way of attracting motorists to a diner, coffee shop, or roadside attraction was to build the building in an unusual shape, especially the shape of the things sold there. “Mimic” architecture became a trend, and many roadside coffee shops were built in the shape of giant coffee pots; hot dog stands were built in the shape of giant hot dogs; and fruit stands were built in the shape of oranges or other fruit. Water towers
Water towers, often a prominent feature in a small town, have often been shaped or decorated to look like everyday objects. Storage tanks Several breweries and other businesses have designed holding tanks in the shape of giant cans of beer or other containers.
Giant sculptures
Another aspect of novelty architecture is sculptures of ordinary items scaled to enormous size. Googie/populuxe architecture Architecture popular in the 1950s-1960s in southern California and in Florida featured sharp corners, tilted roofs, starburst designs, and fanciful shapes. This came to be known as Googie Doo Wop or populuxe architecture. Other Long-established firms whose features are well-known could still qualify as novelty architecture. A couple of examples would be McDonald’s original golden-arches design, originating in California as many of the novelty designs have; and the self-referencing design of the White Castle restaurants. Deconstructivism Some critics claim that much of today’s contemporary architecture under the guise of Deconstructivism is actually Novelty architecture. Practitioners include leading architects such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid. |
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Folly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed strictly as a decoration, having none of the usual purposes of housing or sheltering associated with a conventional structure. They originated as decorative accents in parks and estates. “Folly” is used in the sense of fun or light-heartedness, not in the sense of something ill-advised. Characteristics The concept of the folly is somewhat ambiguous, but they generally have the following properties: Related types Follies fall within the general realm of fanciful and impractical architecture, and whether a particular structure is a folly is sometimes a matter of opinion. However, there are several types which are related but which can be distinguished from follies. History Follies began as decorative accents on the great estates of the late 16th and early 17th centuries but they flourished especially in the two centuries which followed. Many estates were blessed with picturesque ruins of monastic houses and (in Italy) Roman villas; others, lacking such buildings, constructed their own sham versions of these romantic structures. Such structures were often dubbed “[name of architect or builder]’s Folly”, after the single individual who commissioned or designed the project. However, very few follies are completely without a practical purpose. Apart from their decorative aspect, many originally had a use which was lost later, such as hunting towers. Follies are misunderstood structures, according to The Folly Fellowship, a charity that exists to celebrate the history and splendour of these often neglected buildings. Follies are often found in parks or large grounds of houses and stately homes. Some were deliberately built to look partially ruined. They were especially popular from the end of the 16th century to the 18th century. Theme parks and world’s fairs have often contained “follies”, although such structures do serve a purpose of attracting people to those parks and fairs. Famine Follies The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49 led to the building of several follies. The society of the day held that reward without labour was misguided. However, to hire the needy for work on useful projects would deprive existing workers of their jobs. Thus, construction projects termed “famine follies” came to be built. These include: roads in the middle of nowhere, between two seemingly random points; screen and estate walls; piers in the middle of bogs; etc.[1] |
Fantastic architecture (follies)
2 DecFantasy Architecture
1 DecSection based on exhibition Fantasy Architecture- see link http://www.ngca.co.uk/home/default.asp?id=45 (special thanks). | ||
Image: Peter Cook Design for Sleektower and Veranda Tower, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 1984 Print, coloured (101 x 73.5 cm) RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Stephen Rowland Pierce (1896-1966) Design for postwar reconstruction of the “Metropolis of Britain”, 1942 Brown pen and wash RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Philip Armstrong Tilden (1887-1956) Design for a tower for Selfridge’s department store, Oxford Street, London, 1918 Pen RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Will Alsop The Fourth Grace, 2002 Digital print (dimensions variable) © Alsop Architects Limited. Image by Virtual Artworks. |
Alexander Carse (fl.1794-1838) View of the Willow Cathedral, 1792 Watercolour RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects Morecambe Nightview, 1991 Crayon and ink on film (162 x 860 cm) © Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects |
Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray, Hood & Fouilhoux, and C. Howard Crane Design for International Music Hall and Opera House, Hyde Park Corner, London, c.1935 Interior perspective of Grand Foyer Gouache and gold paint RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Étienne Louis Boullée (1728-1799) Project for a metropolian cathedral in the form of a Greek cross with a domed centre, 1782 Pen and grey wash RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Foreign Office Architects World Trade Centre, New York, 2002 Digital Print (dimensions viable) © Foreign Office Architects |
John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906) and Edward Beckitt Lamb (1857-1934) Design for the Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower, Westminster, London, 1904 Watercolour on board RIBA Library Drawings Collection |
Softroom Mason Canif, 1997 Digital image © Softroom |
FAT (Fashion, Architecture, Taste) Princess Diana Memorial Bridge, London, 1988 Digital Print (dimensions variable) © FAT |
Lodon of the “future”. | Cite Industrielle by Garnier, 1908. | Citta Nuova by Sant’Elia, 1914. |
Ville Contemporaine by Le Corbusier, 1934. | Walking city by Herron & Harvey, 1963. | Plug-in city by Cook, 1964 & Cook’s Tricking Tower, 1978-79.. These images illustrate Archigram’s two main concepts, expandablity and prefabrication. |
Lang’s vision of future in Metropolis. | Le Corb’s Plan Voisin, 1925. | Mies’ glass skyscraper, 1922. |
Imagined buildings, structures and schemes – from designs for palaces by medieval masters to futuristic film sets.Featuring the work of visionary figures as diverse as Inigo Jones, Joseph Paxton, Robert Adam, John Soane, Edwin Lutyens, Archigram and Foreign Office Architects, Fantasy Architecture includes a wealth of historical and contemporary drawings. Paintings, models, collage, film and computer renderings of designs for buildings that might have changed our lives, or could still do so, are also presented.
An explosion of building activity across Britain has made headlines over the past decade, with lottery-funded projects transforming towns and cities. Architects’ impressions, which herald these projects, have become familiar. Yet these designs for built and un-built projects have been produced for hundreds of years, from ink and wash drawings to the computer animations of today. Many were intended to enthuse and convince clients about real schemes, but some were private fantasies. This exhibition explores how the world might look today had the politics, the economics, the technical Fantasy Architecture is divided into eight sections; Anchor Blocks; F.A.D. Richter & Co., Max Clenndining, Foreign Office The Appliance of Science includes designs by the adventurous counter-cultural group Archigram, as well as NASA Ames Research Center’s scheme for a space settlement developed in the 1970s. Alsop Architects, Ove Nyquist Arup, Eduardo Fernando Catalano, James Clephan, Peter Cook, Ronald Aver Duncan, Richard Buckminster Fuller, Stephen Geary, Joseph Hartland, Ron Herron; Archigram, William Low, Greg Lynn; FORM, Virgilio Marchi, NASA Ames Research Center, Raymond McGrath, Nils Norman, Megastructure includes Asymptote’s recent design for the New York Virtual Stock Exchange with streams of financial data as a dynamic virtual environment and Joseph Paxton’s 1855 vision for a monumental ten mile Great Victorian Way, combining shops, hotels and restaurants with an elevated railway. Asymptote, Charles Barry, John Belcher, Etienne Louis Boullée, W. Bridges, Peter Cook; Archigram, Constant, Freedom Ship International, Charles Holden, Marshall & Tweedy with Oliver Bernard and Partners, Leslie Martin, Joseph Paxton, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Superstudio Vertical Visions reveals un-built plans for a new World Trade Center by Foster and Partners and a design for a bombastic tower commissioned by Gordon Selfridge in 1918 to perch atop his London department store. Stefan Buzas, Peter Cook, Elgo Plastics Inc., Foster and Partners, MVRDV, Thomas Rickman and Richard Charles Hussey, R. Seifert and Partners, Paolo Soleri, Philip Armstrong Tilden, King Vidor, Wim Wenders, Alfred Waterhouse Past Perfect shows visions of imaginary landscapes and panoramas inspired by legend and archaeological evidence. Robert Adam, The Adventure Company/Wanadoo, Henry Carlton Bradshaw, Henry William Brewer, Alexander Carse, Charles Robert Cockerell, Raymond Erith and Quinlan Terry, Takehiko Nagakura, Andrea Palladio, Giovanni Pastrone, Arthur Beresford Pite, William Walcot, Paul Wegener and Carl Boese City Futures offers a glimpse of things to come in works like Fast Forward, 2001, a film designed to test visual memory of London’s skyline. Michael Anderson, Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects, David Butler, George Dance, Balkrishna V. Doshi, EA Games, Maurice Elvey, Hayes Davidson, Zaha Hadid, Helmut Jacoby, Virgilio Marchi, Eric Mendelsohn, William Cameron Menzies / László Moholy-Nagy, William Noel Moffett, John Buonarotti Papworth, Stephan Rowland Pierce, Gaston Quiribet, Rodney Thomas, Clough Williams-Ellis All the World’s a Stage includes the lavishly ornamented Renaissance set designs of the Galli Bibiena Family and a sketch for a Fun Palace of 1974 by Cedric Price. John Alexander, Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects, Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray, Hood & Fouilhoux and C. Howard Crane, Antonio Galli Bibiena, Giovanni Carlo Galli Bibiena, Guiseppe Galli Bibiena, Inigo Jones, Cedric Price In Memoriam, is at once serious and humorous. It includes designs for a Princess Diana Memorial Bridge by FAT as well as Claes Oldenburg’s 1966 maquette for a monument to the mini-skirt. William Chambers, FAT, John Flaxman, Foreign Office Architects, Foster and Partners, Ernö Goldfinger, Francis Goodwin, Thomas Affleck Greeves, Thomas Harrison, Louis Hellman, Hector Horeau, Tom Mellor, Claes Oldenburg, John Pollard Seddon and Edward Beckitt Lamb, John Soan. |
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With special thanks to http://www.ngca.co.uk/home/default.asp?id=45 Link- http://courses.arch.hku.hk/ComGraphics/02-03/students/ywlam/dissert/all.htm |