Waterfall College Design Notes 1

Populuxe & Googie

Waterfall College Design Notes 2

A futuristic design style of the late 1950s and early 1960s often using pastel colors,

synthetic materials, and stainless steel and evoking a sense of luxury.

Populuxe is a synthetic word, created in the spirit of the many coined words of the

time. Madison Avenue kept inventing words like "autodynamic," which described a

shape of car which made no sense aerodynamically. It derives, of course, from

popularity and it has luxury, popular luxury, luxury for all.

What was the movement all about?

Populuxe – popularity and luxury - was an expression of the spirit of the time.

In the 1950s, most people believed life was getting better. Average wages were

rising. Average houses were getting bigger. Average families were getting larger. In

1959, a poll of teenagers discovered that most young people believed that their lives

would get steadily better.

The decade from 1954 to 1964 was one of history's great shopping sprees.

Many Americans splurged and adorned their mass-produced houses, furniture and

machines with items of the space.

"Live your dreams and meet your budget,"

one advertisement promised, and unprecedented numbers of Americans were able

to do it.

What they bought was rarely fine, but it was often fun. There were so many things to

buy--a power lawnmower, a modern dinette set, a washer with a window through

which you could see the wash water turn disgustingly grey, a family room, a charcoal

grill. Products were available in a lurid rainbow of colours and a steadily changing

array of styles. Commonplace objects took extraordinary form, and the exciting and

exotic quickly became commonplace.

Industry saw people as something new, "a mass market," an overwhelmingly

powerful generator of profits and economic growth.

The essence of Populuxe is not merely having things. It is having things in a way that

they and never been had before, and it is an expression of outright, thoroughly vulgar

joy in being able to live so well.

The 1950s and 60s were a time of celebrating technology, the imagined future and

the ability to live large.

Waterfall College Design Notes 3

Populuxe Style

The use of pastel colours

Mass-production

Use of steel, and chrome

Atomic, space age design

Futuristic look and feel

A sense of luxury and pleasure

Giving extraordinary appeal to commonplace objects

Googie

Googie is a form of modern architecture, elements of which represent the populuxe

aesthetic - futurist architecture influenced by car culture, jets, the Space Age, and the

Atomic Age.

Originating in Southern California during the late 1940s and continuing approximately

into the mid-1960s, Googie-themed architecture was popular among motels, coffee

houses and gas stations.

Googie has its roots in the Streamline Moderne movement of the 1930s.

Googie Style

Organic, free form building forms Curvaceous, geometric shapes Atomic, space age, exotic building themes Prominent signs often with neon lights Cantilevered roofs Common use of glass, steel and neon Upswept roofs Space Age designs symbolic of motion, such as boomerangs, flying saucers, atoms

and parabolas Starbursts

Waterfall College Design Notes 4

1. Verner Panton

Verner Panton is considered one of Denmark's most

influential 20th-century furniture and interior designers.

During his career, he created innovative, funky and

futuristic designs in a variety of materials, especially

plastics, and in vibrant and exotic colors.

His style was very "1960s" but regained popularity at the

end of the 20th century; as of 2004, Panton's most well-

known furniture models are still in production

◄ The Panton Chair

An S-shaped plastic chair, moulded from a single, continuous

sheet of plastic.

Panton had dreamt of making a stackable, cantilevered plastic

chair all in one piece.

It is said he had been inspired in particular by a neatly stacked

pile of plastic buckets.

Populuxe and Googie Designers

Waterfall College Design Notes 5

Activity

Choose any 3 of the products below and, in a short paragraph of approximately half a page,

discuss how the design and use of materials is in keeping with the populuxe and googie

aesthetic.

▼ A. Living Tower

▼ B. Cone Chair

▼ C. Flower Pot Light ▼ D. VP Globe

▼ E. Wire Floor Lamp ▼ F. Flying Chair

Waterfall College Design Notes 6

2. Wes Wilson & 60s Psychedelic Design

Wes Wilson is an American artist and one of the leading designers of psychedelic posters

He invented a style that is now synonymous with the peace movement, psychedelic era

and the 1960s.

In particular, he is known for inventing and popularizing a "psychedelic" font around 1966

that made the letters look like they were moving or melting.

He is known as the father of the 1960s rock concert poster,

His style, inspired by the Art Nouveau masters, took what was understood about

promotional art and turned it inside-out. Nearly cryptic letters filled every available space,

lines melted into lines, colors clashed and the psychedelic poster was born.