Googie | Los Angeles Conservancy

Googie

Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

George's 50s Diner

Wayne McAllister
An iconic building with all the essential ingredients of the drive-in diner with a building that served as its own best advertising at the busy intersection of Atlantic Avenue and San Antonio Drive.
Johnie's Coffee Shop
Photo by Stephen Russo

Johnie's Coffee Shop

Armet & Davis
One of L.A.'s finest examples of Googie architecture popular in the 1950s and '60s stands as an irreplaceable reminder of L.A.'s postwar period.
La Villa Basque
Photo by Larry Underhill

La Villa Basque

Architect Unknown
A unique landmark in the industrial city of Vernon for over half a century, its unique hybrid of coffee shop, lounge, fine dining establishment, and event space served everyone from truck drivers to wedding parties.
Lakeside Car Wash
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Lakeside Car Wash

Architect Unknown
Standing out with its unusual ranch house-meets-Googie coffee shop style, Lakeside Car Wash hides dirty cars from view while showcasing shiny and clean cars out front.
McDonald's Hamburgers
Photo from Conservancy archives

McDonald's Hamburgers

Stanley Clark Meston
A Googie-style building designed to reveal the restaurant's innovative food preparation techniques, it is the oldest surviving McDonald's restaurant still in operation.
Mel's
Photo by Jessica Hodgdon/L.A. Conservancy

Mel's

Armet & Davis
A great example of Louis Armet and Eldon Davis early Googie designs, showing their use of angled rooflines, dramatic signage, and other space-age elements that would become even more angled and dramatic in their later work.
Photo by Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy

Mission Hills Bowl

Martin Stern, Jr.
Designed by Martin Stern, Jr., a proponent of Googie style architecture, Mission Hills Bowl is a rare surviving example of a postwar bowling alley.
Pann's Coffee Shop
Photo from Conservancy archives

Pann's Coffee Shop

Armet & Davis
Helen Fong
One of the last and best of the iconic futuristic coffee shops designed by the prolific firm of Armet & Davis, its traffic island is an oasis of subtropical planting beneath an immense, hovering "tortoise shell" roof.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Ray Vines Chrysler

Architect Unknown
With its complex “flying V” roofline, the Ray Vines Chrysler building at the corner of Willow Street and Lakewood Boulevard is unquestionably eye-catching.

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