Tacky Nostalgia? No, These Are Landmarks

By J.D. Reed

Twenty years ago, it was simple enough to define an architectural landmark. American beauties like Monticello, the Smithsonian Institution "Castle" and Grand Central Terminal came to mind. These days, however, the definitions are becoming a little trickier -- and a little tackier. Supermarkets, drive-ins, car washes, neon signs and other exuberant examples of Pop architecture, mostly from the 1950s, are being touted for preservation, and some have already been set aside as historic landmarks by local and state agencies. "Many of the things that were taken for granted in the 19th century -- factories, mills, neighborhoods -- people now want to save," says Chester H. Liebs, historian and author of Main Street to Miracle Mile. "The same thing is going to happen to this century."

Much of the attention to what critics call the "vernacular architecture" of the postwar era comes from baby boomers nostalgically intent on preserving the roadside attractions of their youth. Groups in six states are seriously studying some of the teepee-shape motels and iceberg-shape gas stations that still dot U.S. Route 66, once the main route from Chicago to Los Angeles. "These places are a part of our history," says Richard Gutman, author of American Diner. "They are being swept away at a pace that is astonishing."

The sooner the better, some might think. The '50s and '60s landscape was one of atomic optimism on the go, of Sputnik-like motels and space-race tail fins. The style captured an attitude of innocent adventure in a TV fantasy of stucco and neon. Could Wally and the Beaver come to serious harm in a drive-in with a giant ice-cream cone for a roof? George Jetson, it seems, could have been the master architect of the whole doo-wop decade. Granted, one thing to be said for those stylistic oddities is that they extended a warmer welcome than much of today's franchised glitz. Says Arthur Krim of the Society for Commercial Archeology, which studies America's commercial history: "To look at a diner or gas station was a link to a smaller, more friendly world." But not necessarily a more visually pleasing one.

Still, a hulking hot-dog stand is often a lesser evil than what some developers want to put in its place. When a new mini-mall threatened to replace the Minuteman Carwash in Los Angeles, a 1960 building sporting a boomerang-shape decoration on its roof, neighborhood residents petitioned the Cultural Heritage Commission of Los Angeles to declare it a landmark. The ploy failed, but the case attracted the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the largest preservation organization in the U.S. Says trust spokeswoman Courtney Damkroger: "If something like this gas station is designated a landmark locally, it sets a precedent for other buildings of its kind."

The debate over the historic worth of these roadside wonders is sure to continue. Landscape theorist J.B. Jackson thinks saving car washes and doughnut stores is absurd. Says he: "There's a fake folksiness at work." Although Liebs somewhat agrees, he feels it is necessary to study vernacular architecture. "This century," he says, "is also highways and strips and suburbs." As Chuck Berry told the doo-wop generation, Roll over, Beethoven, and tell Tchaikovsky the news.

With reporting by Daniel S. Levy/New York and Tara Weingarten/Los Angeles