Googie Architecture and Space Needle Essay

Submitted By googoogagagogogo
Words: 828
Pages: 4

The Seattle Space Needle

Structural Frame
The form of this building is very futuristic in shape, bottom is an hourglass shape and the top looks rather like a UFO with a needle on top, in fact the architect of this particular building; John Graham, had an Idea to build a restaurant in a tower shaped like a “flying saucer” . The building mainly is white and made out of iron, on its 50th anniversary, the top of the tower was painted galaxy gold. The needle was completed in 1962 and the shape is one of the American Northwest’s most easily recognizable buildings, though it is not very tall, the shape is often called ahead of its time as the building looked too futuristic for its time when it was built. As mentioned earlier the building is mainly made out of iron which makes it very strong against, winds of up to 200/mph and can stand earthquakes of up to 8 on the Richter scale. When put against the other major building in America, the space needle is dwarfed by them all, being only 184 m tall. The building is located on 400 Broad Street Seattle, Washington, US and was the main attraction of the world fair 1962’.

Subjective frame

I feel very confronted when I see this particular building, the building itself is very awe-inspiring and gives you a feeling that can take your breath away. When looking up to the building, it can make you feel very small and very insignificant, although the building is short by today’s standards, it was once the tallest building in the American North West. When I look at the building I feel amazed that in the 1960s people were able to construct such a futuristic and amazing building. The building often is associated with a UFO soaring in the sky, in fact the original architect was inspired to design the building like a “flying Saucer”. The building was made for the world fair of 1962 and the theme of the fair was 21st century, hence the futuristic design of the building. The architect originally wanted to put a huge balloon at the top of the tower but the idea was shortly trashed as they found the idea inconceivable so the architects, compromised with a UFO design. One of the architects who designed the space needle found inspiration from the stuggart tower in Germany and planned to envision their own version worthy to rival the stuggart tower itself.

Cultural frame
The Seattle space needle was built in 1962 for the 62’ world fair in Seattle. Though the construction of the building was mainly by a small company called Howard S. Wright Construction. Co it is now called space Needle Corporation. The purpose of the building was meant to be as a restaurant for the futuristic themed 62’ world fair. The type of architecture the space needle is, is called googie architecture, googie is a form of modern architecture that was influenced by the space and atomic age. It started in the 1940s and lasted to the 1960s. During that time many petrol stations, motels, and food outlets were googie architecture, one of the most famous examples of googie architecture was one of the very first Mc Donald’s restaurants. The building connected to the place it was in as during its heyday in the