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Loading... Road Trip: Roadside America, From Custard's Last Stand to the Wigwam Restaurantby Richard Longstreth
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This isn't the type of book I'd normally review on my blog, but I'm a sucker for guidebooks focused on buildings, capital A architecture or not. As the name indicates this book is about vernacular roadside architecture in the United States, predominantly buildings and structures that were built between 1920 and the late 1960s; after that, the Interstate Highway System changed the landscape of roadside architecture into something more corporate and less idiosyncratic. The chapters illustrate just what was built in those decades: commercial strips, restaurants, gas stations, motels, stores, theaters, and "other places of entertainment." Each of these chapters has an introduction on the respective typology, followed by Longstreth's photographs with captions that indicate the what, where, and when. Most photos were taken in the 1970s, making Roadside America a visual history and remembrance of places under-appreciated in their time. It's like going through a scholarly photo album of the author's journeys and reminisces, very heavy on the early 1970's and along several highway corridors (i.e. US-1 in Virginia, several roadways in Kansas and Texas). The text mostly introduces each segment of the book and could have been deeper, but it works as a coffee-table book and for deeper exploration of the topics and styles covered. no reviews | add a review
Expectation, anticipation, discovery--each of these is a facet of an American institution, the road trip. With a focus on vernacular roadside architecture built between 1920 and the late 1960s, the golden age of the American road, Road Trip is a time capsule, a snapshot taken primarily in the early 1970s, of an extraordinary era and its roadside buildings, restaurants, gas stations, motels, and places of amusement, most of which are now long since gone. Built in an age of unbridled imagination, these structures speak to the fancies of their original owners and builders as much as to the purposes for which they were built: a gas station whose pumps are covered by a canopy in the form of a fully realized B-29 bomber; a hot dog stand named Frank 'n' Stein, whose diners are met by a colossal Frankenstein bearing in one hand a mustard-covered dog and in the other a mug of foaming beer. With more than 200 previously unpublished full-colour photographs of the iconic imagery of the American highway and richly descriptive text, Road Trip will delight and engage both the armchair traveler, the enthusiast of Americana, the architectural enthusiast, and all those longing for the romance of the road. No library descriptions found. |
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