Sites for Sore Eyes : Design Council Gets a Look at the Goofy Architecture That Litters the Southland Landscape

Once upon a time in the Southland, you could eat ham sandwiches in a building shaped like a giant pig with neon nostrils. You could buy a vanilla cone in the Hoot I Scream, a giant owl with a neck that rotated and eyes--Cadillac headlights--that blinked in the night. (When neighbors complained, the car-horn hooter was disconnected.) Then you could turn in for the night in one of the tepee-shaped bungalows of the Wigwam Hotel.

At Monday night’s meeting of the Architectural and Design Council of the Newport Harbor Art Museum, author and graphic designer Jim Heimann showed images of some of the goofy architecture ubiquitous in the Southern California of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

Such innovative buildings were the product of a automobile-reliant culture (businesses needed to grab drivers’ attention in a hurry) and a region with no established East Coast-style architectural traditions, Heimann explained. There was plenty of cheap land, no need to worry about the weather, no building code restrictions and, seemingly, no end of perky ideas.

Heimann, 40, is a voluble second-generation Angelino with a toothy smile. His book “California Crazy” reproduces photos--located in archives, including the Library of Congress--of fanciful buildings that have long since been demolished. His research included scrutinizing the images with a magnifying glass to find clues to determine exact addresses.

Although many structures have been razed, he discovered, others have had second and third lives, thanks to later “improvements.” One eatery shaped like a coffeepot became a seafood restaurant with the removal of its handle and spout and the addition of a hailstorm of abalone shells.

Impermanence was frequently the name of the game. Building methods were sometimes slapdash. Landscaping was often considered a needless frill. Some small shops, such as one shaped like an ice-cream maker, were designed to be mobile. The owner would lease a particular corner for a few months and, if business was slow, the building would be hoisted on a flatbed truck and moved elsewhere.

Bastardized foreign influences were big in certain years. The discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922 set off a rash of Egyptian-influenced building. Polynesian themes were chic in the ‘50s, also the heyday of the “atomic” look (star-burst designs, rocket nose-cone shapes).

In recent years, sophisticated postmodern credos such as painted facades and the combination of diverse architectural styles in a single building have spawned many bargain-basement imitations. Heimann’s audience chuckled often at eye-popping pastiches of Mediterranean tile roofs and pastel postmodern colors and individualistic neighboring homes that clash wildly with each other.

Tied for “ugliest house in L.A.,” in Heimann’s view, are a stucco building sheathed in lava rock and painted black (except for a plywood door) and a structure with a red roof, chartreuse walls and an Astroturf lawn.

Heimann concluded with a dash through numerous images of gonzo billboards, way-out murals, store facades that change every few months, bizarre window dressing and an unlikely “family” of giant men used as freeway-visible advertising.

Throughout his talk, he evoked a culture that--while seemingly intent on destroying the last vestiges of a former era of eccentric architecture--is still attempting to create new (if often stylistically inept) versions.

But, as Heimann pointed out, antic self-expression has not died in Southern California: In one Los Angeles driveway today, a strobe light flashes every night on a Cadillac covered with broken mirrors.