Future Forward
If architecture defines the ideals and values of a generation, then it was the age of bold shapes, chrome details, attractive colors, and neon signs. It was the age of the automobile and related architecture. It was the age of the future, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed as though it was here to stay. People looked towards the future with hope and anticipation, envisioning the utopian tomorrow. The post-war housing boom coupled with the rise of automobile culture called for more commercial-focused architecture. This post-war architectural landscape was yet to be painted, and the designers entrusted with the task combined new technologies with modern material and sought to break traditional forms. They come up with controversial shapes and outrageous designs with vivid colors. They searched for ‘humor in architecture.’ The fundamental goal was to grab attention and create architecture that stood out. Designers used glass facades, chrome finishes, angular lines, boomerang shapes, cantilevers, and tapered columns. It was a hopeful look at the world post-war (one might say).
During the War, technology made quantum jumps, and post-war these innovations and inventions were diverted to the consumer market. Gadgets became common, and anything modern and up-to-date was considered superior[1]. War also brought about the invention of the jet engine, which was capitalized and used in commercial airlines. The late 1950s and early 1960s also saw a shift of focus on space exploration. It is not surprising that there a ubiquitous influence of the aerospace industry was seen on Californian architecture. The future and space were prominent themes for architects and manufacturers to exploit. ‘The Jetsons’ was released in the early 1960s as a 24-part series by Hanna-Barbara, a studio based in Southern California. Although it was just a cartoon, it was influenced by very real expectations of the future.
FIGURE 2: TOP From left to right: Buildings Seen in the title track, Theme Building, Los Angeles International Airport by Terry Hassan, Capitol Records by SBC9; BOTTOM from left to right: Building in the Title track and its real-world counterpart, Las Vegas Neon Museum by Gary Bembridge, Neon Museum by Daniel Lobo
The show’s creators reflected the futuristic Southern Californian aesthetic, from theme parks and traffic jams in space to hamburger-shaped fast food stops. It did not matter if any of these were scientifically accurate; what mattered was the promise of a bright future. The buildings in the title track have their influence in the ‘Googie’ style prevalent in California. The Sky Pad Apartments where the Jetsons family stayed (figure 2, top) was a mix of Theme Building at Los Angeles Airport and the Capitol Records Building, whereas the second building (figure 2, bottom) seems to have its roots in the La Concha Visitors Center in Las Vegas. What is this ‘Jetsonian’ architecture? What are its influences both architecturally and philosophically? This research paper explores the post-war architectural landscape in Southern California and how it influenced the crazy futuristic world of The Jetsons.
The post-World War I economic boom was reflected in the American culture and architecture. The 1920s saw a rise in new technologies, which made cars, radios, and refrigerators accessible to the common public. Public taste for ornament and luxury skyrocketed[2]. As a result, designs reflected an eloquent and somewhat hedonistic aesthetic language with equally splendid interiors. Styles like art deco and nuevo, associated with luxury and modernity, became popular across the United States, including California. Buildings like the Chrysler Building, Bullocks Wilshire, and the Eastern Columbia Building are good examples of this period. The advent of the next decade brought with it the Great Depression. The elaborate aesthetic was toned down to match this loss of prosperity. This style is now known as Streamline Moderne. It was a more austere style using basic shapes and focusing on practicality and functionality. It combined art deco with modern principles of Bauhaus. Around the mid-1930s, cars began to dominate the urban landscape, redefining how people moved from place to place and how they performed their daily tasks[3]. New industries and commerce rose, catering and providing service to this car culture. The Streamline Moderne buildings mimicked the machines and technology for form derivation (figure 3). Their architectural language reproduced the aesthetics of ships, trains, and planes whose clean lines visually reduced wind resistance. These forms carried eyes quickly around the corners offering efficient movement. Although this might not be scientifically accurate, it is symbolically associated with modern technology and progress. The style sought to capture the excitement of speed (of cars and planes) distract themselves from the scars of the Great Depression. Much of the architecture in the world of Jetsons had Streamline Moderne influence. Even though by the 1940s, the style faded and the modernist International Style with its hard, chiseled edges and machines replaced it, it sowed the seeds of future, progress, and the modern. It was a foundation for the 1950s post-war architectural landscape.
Figure 3: Some of the buildings that were inspired by the Streamline Moderne Style on the show
After World War II, more people started living in the suburbs, and more people were driving. Cities spread outward, and people were not restricted to downtown anymore. The decentralization of business districts commanded a change in the architectural language. The suburban ranch tracts started offering the same commodities to their residents as downtown. Soon they became top social gathering places.[4] People also started embracing modern architecture and the technology associated with it. The war-driven technological advancement and inventions were brought into the consumer market. Electricity, refrigerators, telephones, household appliances, office machines, and other gadgets were all made available to the public for improving their lives. The demand for cars was on the rise. To cater to this developing techno-car culture, businesses and services started opening in strips of commercial buildings like motels, gas stations, coffee shops, bowling alleys, and car washes. All these businesses were designed to be easily accessed by car. Communication became of prime importance, and hence buildings became more noticeable and expressive. They capitalized on these commuters with the help of attention-grabbing buildings and signs that captivated the car owners. They became ‘functional signboards,’ and the architecture language was sleek and expressive.[5] It reflected similar aspirations of people and their lives then. Soon the building forms were made as large collages of different materials and colors and were illuminated by attractive neon signs. The shapes, illumination, and colors together were a perfect symbol of modernity and mobility. All these features made up the new gaudy design style of Googie architecture.
These buildings didn’t look ordinary and had eccentric forms utilizing modern materials like glass, chrome (steel), and plastic, resembling spaceships, missiles, and power plants. They looked like gravity-defying abstracts with unconventional geometrical features. The style’s signature lay in its sweeping arches, reverse cantilevered roofs, angular lines, and bold colors and lighting. The buildings were often designed to look suspended and hanging from the sky. This is the reason it looked futuristic. If the architect wanted to develop a small corner hot dog stand, the whole form would be a hotdog[6].
Figure 4: A fast food joint selling burgers in ‘ The Jetsons’ looking like a burger
However, these odd, unconventional forms and materials should not be mistaken for poor design. They had a deep understanding of spatial concepts and solved functional problems of automobile-oriented buildings[7]. Where cars could be parked, drive-ins, what interior geometries would be all were thought and planned carefully. ‘The Spaceburger’ (figure 4) with its cylindrical form, peripheral parking, and glass, reflected the typical Los Angeles roadside urban strip design.
Googie Architecture gets its name from a coffee shop in West Hollywood designed by John Lautner in 1949 called “Googies.” This structure had all the elements that would later become synonymous with the architectural style of coffee shops and drive-ins across the city. The name Googie itself is flamboyant and outrageous. Douglas Haskell and Julius Shulman of the House and Home magazine were driving around Los Angeles when they stopped near “Googies,” and Haskell exclaimed – “This is Googie architecture.” He published an article about the architectural style in the magazine’s 1952 edition and officially named the style. Perhaps the famous examples for this architectural language would be Space Needle in Seattle, the Theme Building at Los Angeles Airport, John Lautner’s Chemosphere (Figure 5), or even 1950s Las Vegas. But the heart of the Googie style lay in the Angeleno coffee shops and car washes. The buildings themselves became a landmark feature of the urban fabric.
Figure 5: John Lautner’s Chemosphere was another inspiration
Post-war, the technological advancement in aviation, the jet engine, benefited the commercial aviation market in the form of more efficient planes, and air travel became common. The confluence of car culture and space-age gave Googie its retro-futuristic look. World War also brought about the birth of atomic science. With it came the promise of advanced societies that would be powered by nuclear energy. Space travel was no longer a dream but a mere decade away, and people might soon venture into space or the moon. The futuristic era was just around the corner, and rockets and space travel seemed almost inevitable. With Russia launching Sputnik in 1957 and the 1961 Apollo missions, space and science were the in-themes[8]. Even Disneyland capitalized on this idea. When the park opened in Anaheim, California, in 1955, it had ‘Tomorrowland’ as a part of the complex (figure 6). It was designed as a place that reflected things to come. A bright white rocket ship towered over the ‘land,’ proclaiming to blast off into space to explore distant galaxies. It had all things future, a shiny metallic orb (a symbol of the future) sculpture, and decorations on each building. An extravagant chronometer telling exact minutes and hours anywhere in the world stood near the entrance. It soon became an icon and a place to enjoy and marvel at things to come. Tomorrowland was mirroring the sentiments of the people, a sort of nostalgia for the future. It was met with tremendous success. Its model was replicated at Astro-land, a theme part at Coney Island, in 1962. It was not a future with identical high-rise buildings and multi-layered streets[9]. It was organic and symbiotic and guided with the aspirations of everyday life.
Figure 6: From left Tomorrowland, Astroland, a theme park in the show
In 1957, Tomorrowland introduced the Monsanto House of the Future (figure 7), which stood for a decade. It presented the average American home and life as it would be in 1986. The house itself was dreamed up by a couple of men working at Monsanto’s chemical division who wanted to know how cheap, mass-produced homes and furniture would look.[10] Mass-production was not a novel concept, as post-war prefabrication and cost-effective construction techniques were common. The eventually built design had a cruciform plan with equal-sized U-shaped rooms housing the residents and their activities. The building was made of fiberglass, defying conventions at the time, and was raised eight feet above the ground on a Greek cross that formed the central concrete core and housed bathroom and utilities
It was remarkable for its brightly colored interiors, modern angles, futuristic design, and its placement of family life in conversation with surrounding technological systems (figure 7, 8).[11] The house featured elaborate and multitudes of gadgets that made life easy, including projector light, voice control, and automated lighting. With its push-button living, the home was another prominent feature in the TV series. There is a running gag within the series where it is common for people to get ‘push-button fingers’ from frequently pressing and pushing buttons for their daily tasks. Many scenes from the series that showed inside homes clearly show that the creators took inspiration from The House of Tomorrow.
Figure 7: Monsanto’s House of the Future
Figure 8: From left House of the Future plan, Interiors in Jetsons
Architect Gin Wong was another inspiration behind the crazy and fantastic world of the Jetsons. He is known for designing some of California’s most remarkable and iconic buildings, including the Theme Building at the Los Angeles Airport and the Union 76 gas station at Beverly Hills. His architecture was highly futuristic, with extensive use of glass and curved shapes. He defined the post-war architecture of Los Angeles with Union 67, and its sweeping canopy that resembles an alien refueling stop is one of the best examples of Googie Style. The animators lived and breathed Wong’s world as they drove around Burbank and Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s. The design of that Jetsonian world was as much his as it was Hanna-Barbera’s.[12] If the Googies defined the architectural language of the Jetsonian world, then Gin Wong’s architecture influenced the aesthetic nuances.
Figure 9: Mr. Spacely’s old fishing cabin inspired by villain Vandamm’s hideout in North By Northwest, a movie set in Southern California (a studio set)
Googie was born in Los Angeles, California, one of the fastest-growing cities, and its affinity for experimental architecture. The series is flooded with the features and aesthetics of Googie. One could argue that Hanna-Barbara did not exaggerate the style they copied it.[13] With dozens of coffee shops, Theme Building at the Los Angeles Airport, and Disneyland’s Tomorrowland and Monsanto House of the Future, the animators did not have to go further than their backyards to find and be inspired by Googie. All buildings in Los Angeles screamed Googie around the 1950s and 1960s. The style is based on post-WWII American futurism. It lasted for around 25 years, defining the aesthetic of 1950s and 1960s American retro-futurism. It was part of people’s daily lives; it was for everyone and not some custom design for a wealthy bloke.
However, by the 1970s, there was a shift in the culture. The excitement about the moon landing, space flight, and nuclear power became mundane. An affinity for the environment and the ecological movement replaced the boisterous sentiments, and soon the style died. Nevertheless, there was a certain innocence to the style as it expressed optimism about the future. It showed that held good things. Jetsons was the reflection of that optimism. ‘The Jetsons’ has since become synonymous with the future and futuristic architecture.
[1] (Hess, Googie Redux Ultramodern Roadside Architecture 2004)
[2] (Tubach 2018)
[3] (Hess, Googie Redux Ultramodern Roadside Architecture 2004)
[4] (Docevski 2017)
[5] (Docevski 2017)
[6] (Venturi , Brown and Izenour 1977)
[7] (Hess, Googie Redux Ultramodern Roadside Architecture 2004)
[8] (Retrofuture 2019)
[9] (Hess, Googie Redux Ultramodern Roadside Architecture 2004)
[10] (Silva n.d.)
{11] (Silva n.d.)
[12] (Novak, Gin Wong, LA Architect Who Inspired The Jetsons, Dies at 94 2017)
[13] (Novak, Googie: Architecture of the Space Age 2012)
(All images are taken from Wikimedia Commons or screenshots from the TV Show)
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