Architecture and Automobiles

[Gunsmoke]

As an architect, I routinely come across interesting pictures of well known buildings under construction and occasionally with some interesting cars included. This one showed up on FB recently, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Guggenheim Museum in NYC, begun in 1956 and completed in 1959. The spiraling design and bold concrete surfaces were quite a change in aesthetics for the time, with the overall theme dating to a few years even earlier (mid-late 40's). This photo also has some interesting cars, not the normal big three stuff. I'm sure K31 can pin them all down. 

[Jim Skelly]

'58-59 Rambler American

'53-'54 Rambler American convertible

Checker cab

1957 Oldsmobile

[keiser31]

Left to right: 1955 Rambler. 1953-54 Rambler. 1958 Chevy behind the red Rambler and a Marathon cab.

[Gunsmoke]

The black '55 Rambler is a very stylish car, looks very European, clean lines compared to much of the American Iron of the day. Their clean look did not last long as shown here for 1956.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Gunsmoke (see edit history)

[CChinn]

Can anyone ID the bus?

Edited July 23, 2023 by CChinn (see edit history)

[Jim Skelly]

1 hour ago, keiser31 said:

Left to right: 1955 Rambler. 1953-54 Rambler. 1958 Chevy behind the red Rambler and a Marathon cab.

nope; '55 Rambler has a coarser eggcrate grille; car in the back has a single headlight on each fender (blow up the photo on your screen if your laptop can do that)

[Frank DuVal]

No, that car in the background is a 1958 Chevrolet!!!!!!!

 

We owned one and I know exactly what it looks like. Sure I was 4 to 12 years old when we owned it, but those are the years youngsters look at the family car very closely!

 

I also currently own a 1957 Oldsmobile 98 and that isn't one.

 

Wheelcovers are the giveaway if nothing else.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Frank DuVal (see edit history)

[Gunsmoke]

I think Jim S is correct on identity of black Rambler as a 1959/60 Rambler American Sport, a very fine looking car, with the finer mesh grill. Very clean European style when you consider for a moment what the big 3 were offering. Photo likely dates to late 1958 or early 1959, so likely a '59 model, and brand new. 

[Harold]

The bus looks to me like a GM 'old look' transit bus.

[Jim Skelly]

2 hours ago, Frank DuVal said:

No, that car in the background is a 1958 Chevrolet!!!!!!!

 

We owned one and I know exactly what it looks like. Sure I was 4 to 12 years old when we owned it, but those are the years youngsters look at the family car very closely!

 

I also currently own a 1957 Oldsmobile 98 and that isn't one.

 

Wheelcovers are the giveaway if nothing else.

I agree that the thick fender molding looks like what was used on the '58 Impala, Bel Air and Nomad (4-door version).  The blurry wheel cover also looks similar to what Chevy used that year.  The headlights look like single units on each fender, but it is too blurry to distinguish quad headlights.  The general shape of the fender lip above the bumper, and the dips in the bumper, are quite similar between the '57 Olds and '58 Chevy.  

[keiser31]

I'm sticking with the 1958 Chevrolet identification....

[8E45E]

On 7/23/2023 at 11:48 AM, Gunsmoke said:

I think Jim S is correct on identity of black Rambler as a 1959/60 Rambler American Sport, a very fine looking car, with the finer mesh grill. Very clean European style when you consider for a moment what the big 3 were offering. Photo likely dates to late 1958 or early 1959, so likely a '59 model, and brand new. 

The dead giveaway to it being the reincarnated 1958-'60 100"wb body are the enlarged wheel openings compared to the 1951-'55 design as seen on the red car.

 

Craig

[Gunsmoke]

I can't remember the last time I may have seen a circa 1959/60 Rambler 2 door coupe like this, if ever. I'm assuming a small numbers production, for the AMC/Nash fans, are there many left out there?

[Littlestown Mike]

Going off on a tangent ( not unusual for me....)  Anyone care to comment on trends in architecture being reflected in auto styling?  The easiest for me is the "art Deco" You see it in the Chrylser Bulding and Empire State in NYC and as details on many cars of the same era.

 

[Tom Boehm]

Interesting tangent. Everything mediterranean was popular in the 1970's. This included interior home decor and car names. (Cordoba, Torino, Monte Carlo, Matador). In the 1980's architecture and car styling were very angular. 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Tom Boehm (see edit history)

[8E45E]

11 minutes ago, Littlestown Mike said:

Going off on a tangent ( not unusual for me....)  Anyone care to comment on trends in architecture being reflected in auto styling?  The easiest for me is the "art Deco" You see it in the Chrylser Bulding and Empire State in NYC and as details on many cars of the same era.

 

1961 Lincoln with its office-like Scandinavian Modern instrument panel, using genuine walnut inserts.  

 

Craig

[8E45E]

2 minutes ago, Tom Boehm said:

Everything mediterranean was popular in the 1970's. This included interior home decor and car names.

Interior automotive decor of the time also reflected cheap Woolco melamime & plastic furniture of the era, with acres of molded scrollings of wood-like plastic on the dash and door panels, etc.  Even worse, Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial also reverted to plastic to appear as wood and did not escape the extreme tackiness that summed up the malaise era.

 

Craig

[Shootey]

On car and building similarities, there’s the Dymaxion and geodesic domes. Buckminster Fuller designed both. I don’t know if he thought about the style as much as the structure. I saw the Dymaxion at the Harrah’s collection in the 1960’s. A quirky fellow. 

[Jim Skelly]

Dymaxion House Exhibit at The Henry Ford Museum

[8E45E]

3 hours ago, Shootey said:

On car and building similarities, there’s the Dymaxion and geodesic domes. Buckminster Fuller designed both. I don’t know if he thought about the style as much as the structure. I saw the Dymaxion at the Harrah’s collection in the 1960’s. A quirky fellow. 

I think its safe to say architects are not car designers:  Concept Car of the Week: Le Corbusier’s Voiture Minimum (1936) | Article | Car Design News

 

When Frank Lloyd Wright Designed an Automobile - Mac's Motor City GarageMac's Motor City Garage (macsmotorcitygarage.com)

 

Craig

[Littlestown Mike]

Frank Lloyd Wright had a great eye---but not all of his designs ( cars or building) were readily constructed.  The house at Falling Waters, to give one examp[le, required engineering and materials during its "restoration" what simply were not available at the time he designed it.  It remains a great integration of a residence into its natural setting, but practicality-wise it was a nightmare.

I fear his car design would be similarly impractical.

 

[Gunsmoke]

So what do we have for the car guys in this great photo of Lever House on Park Avenue NY, designed by SOM, photo attributed to Ezra Stoller 1953. Would not be NY without a few Caddies. One of the first very finely detailed glass skyscrapers, likely designed just after WWII. 

[JamesR]

On 8/9/2023 at 10:01 AM, Gunsmoke said:

 

 

Thanks for posting this interesting photo. The very angular mostly glass building seems incongruous with the very rounded and mostly metal cars. A very transitional time in America.

[Gunsmoke]

Architectural history and evolution of "skyscrapers" follows a pattern much like the evolution of the automobile, and a similar time frame. Although highrise steel structured buildings date from about 1890, the first "skin and bones" such structure was designed in 1921 by Mies Van Der Rohe, renowned German-American architect. He envisaged that a properly designed steel carcass could easily support a full glass skin and thus save significantly in cost, material etc. He and Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus movement which along with others became a foundation of the modernist movement in Architecture. As we know, in the same first 50 years of the 20th century similar leaps were taking place in the automotive field, but the design concepts were not always universally developed. Design philosophies in Europe (clean, light, focus on technical excellence) varied from those North America where thru the middle of the century the philosophy was big, flamboyant and marketing. So while buildings like Lever House was perhaps ahead of its time and very modern, '50's American cars for a 10 year period were largely fat cats, appealing to a suddenly affluent populace after WWII. A major difference between buildings and cars: Cars were expected to be done after 15 years or so while buildings such as Lever House would have been designed for a 100+ year life. (Hope members will forgive my Architectural History Lesson). 

 

BTW, for those of you who may not be familiar with Mies Van Der Rohe, look him up, he designed this world famous "Barcelona Chair" in 1929, sold by Knoll, you can still pick one up brand new for about $8,000! I sat in one a few years ago, very comfortable.