Mimetic Architecture

Novelty architecture, also called programmatic architecture or mimetic architecture, is a type of architecture in which buildings and other structures are given unusual shapes for purposes such as advertising or to copy other famous buildings without any intention of being authentic. Their size and novelty means that they often serve as landmarks. They are distinct from architectural follies, in that novelty architecture is essentially usable buildings in eccentric form whereas follies are non-usable, ornamental buildings often in eccentric form.

Overview

Although earlier examples exist, such as the planned but never completed Parisian Elephant of the Bastille, the style generally became popular in the United States, and later to some other countries, as travel by automobile increased in the 1930s. The Statue of Liberty in New York is a statue that is part sculpture and part monument, which like many subsequent examples of novelty architecture, has an accessible interior and became a tourist attraction.

Constructing novelty architecture near to roads became one way of attracting motorists to a diner, coffee shop, or roadside attraction, so buildings were constructed in an unusual shape, especially the shape of the things sold there. "Mimic" architecture became a trend, and many roadside coffee shops were built in the shape of giant coffee pots; hot dog stands were built in the shape of giant hot dogs; and fruit stands were built in the shape of oranges or other fruit. Tail o' the Pup mimics a hot dog-shaped hot dog stand; Brown Derby is a derby-shaped restaurant; Bondurant's Pharmacy is a mortar-and-pestle pharmacy; the Big Apple Restaurant and the Big Duck are, respectively, a tall apple and a (now-defunct) poultry store shaped like a duck. Montréal has the restaurant Gibeau Orange Julep built as a 12-metre high orange-coloured truncated sphere in 1966 (replacing its smaller sphere of 1945) and still operating today.

Novelty or programmatic (mimetic) architecture may take the form of objects not normally associated with buildings, such as characters, animals, people or household objects. Lucy the Elephant and The Longaberger Company's head office are examples. There may be an element of caricature or a cartoon associated with the architecture. Such giant animals, fruits and vegetables, or replicas of famous buildings often serve as attractions themselves. Some are simply unusual shapes or constructed of unusual materials.

Many examples of novelty architecture are designed to attract drive-by customers by taking the form of products sold inside. Others, such as casinos in Las Vegas and Macau, are based on famous landmarks from around the world.

Categories

Buildings resembling objects or creatures

Mimetic architecture, or buildings designed to imitate a giant object or creature, sometimes having to do with what is being sold or showcased inside.

Examples include the High-Heel Wedding Church in Taiwan, the Mr. Toilet House in South Korea, the Museum of Tea Culture in China, the National Fisheries Development Board and the Chowdiah Memorial Hall, the Elephant Building in Thailand, or the Wolfartsweier Cat Kindergarten and the BMW Headquarters in Germany, to name but a few.

Buildings styled after famous landmarks

Novelty architecture in the form of famous landmarks has been built in China, Georgia, Japan and the United States, for instance. Such replica buildings are extensively used in casinos, hotels, shopping plazas, or amusement parks such as Disneyland where the apparent playfulness and whimsy are intended to add to their appeal. In some cases, such as Carhenge, the structure is an adaptation of a well-known building.

In China, the New South China Mall in Dongguan, features a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, another replica of Venice's St Mark's Campanile, a canal with gondolas.

In Batumi on Georgia's Black Sea coast, new high-rise landmark buildings and the renovation of the Old Town have incorporated novelty buildings.Dinah Spritzer, "Next Stop: Glamour revives port of Batumi", ''New York Times'', September 9, 2010
Many of these constructions are novelty architecture, including the Sheraton Hotel, designed in the style of the Great Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt; the Alphabet Tower ( high), celebrating Georgian script and writing; ''Piazza'', a mixed-used development in the form of an Italian piazza; and buildings designed in the style of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Acropolis, and an upside-down White House.

In Japan, there is the Huis Ten Bosch theme park near Nagasaki, which has replicas of Dutch landmarks like Huis ten Bosch and the Dom Tower of Utrecht.

In the US, a shopping plaza in Kansas City, Missouri contains a half-sized replica of La Giralda in Sevilla.Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, in the form of novelty architecture include the pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel and the New York-New York Hotel & Casino, a building designed to look like the New York City skyline; Paris Las Vegas whose front suggests the Paris Opera House and the Louvre; and Excalibur Hotel and Casino (1990), with its stylized façade of King Arthur's castle (Camelot). In Macau, The Venetian Macao, like its counterpart in Las Vegas, features a replica of St Mark's Campanile and other buildings in Venice.

Water towers and storage tanks

Water towers and storage tanks, often prominent features in a small town, are two types of buildings which have been shaped or decorated to look like everyday objects. There are many versions of these types of novelty architecture.

Water towers exist in many forms, among them peaches, coffee pots, and teapots; corn cobs, wine bottles, and sauce bottles; and fishing bobbers and strawberries.

Several breweries and other businesses have designed holding tanks in the shape of giant cans of beer or other containers.

Giant sculptures

Sculptures of ordinary items scaled to building size are another aspect of novelty architecture. Such sculptures appear at roadside parks and attractions or museums in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States. They are likely to represent local animals, such as fish or other wildlife; local plants, such as apples or pineapples; well-known local people such as Paul Bunyan; food, such as the branded candy bars at the former Curtiss Candy Company; sporting or mechanical equipment such as giant bats, balls, or tires; musical instruments, such as guitars; clothing, such as giant boots; or popular creatures, such as dinosaurs.

In some instances, the giant sculpture provides a reference for the building to which it is connected. Examples are the giant baseball bat outside the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory and the giant "paper" aircraft at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Other styles

Architecture popular in the 1950s-1960s in southern California and in Florida featured sharp corners, tilted roofs, starburst designs, and fanciful shapes. This came to be known as ''Googie'', ''Doo Wop'', or ''populuxe'' architecture.

Long-established firms whose features are well-known could still qualify as novelty architecture; examples include McDonald's original golden-arches design and the self-referential design of the White Castle restaurants.

Criticism

Critics of architectural deconstructivism such as Nikos Salingaros, argue that much contemporary architecture is actually Novelty architecture. Leading architects of "the populist, yet the aggressive" form, such as Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid, reverse architecture's main ''raison d'etre'': to provide viable shelter" and appeal instead to "novelty, excitement and meaningless intellectual acrobatics".

Photographer and architecture critic John Margolies praised the Madonna Inn as "an extraordinary architectural monument", developed by the owners "in their own distinctive, untrained way, unscathed by the aesthetic criticism of those who know or think they know". In ''Learning from Las Vegas'', Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour analyzed the Las Vegas Strip, noting the contradictions in modern architecture, which "has tried to take he commercial vernacularover by inventing and enforcing a vernacular of its own ... ejectingthe combination of fine art and crude art".

Gallery

Buildings around the world

File:Dworzec autobusowy Kielce 01 ssj 20060513.jpg, UFO-shaped bus station in Kielce, Poland
File:GiantPineappleNambour.jpg, The Big Pineapple, Nambour, Queensland, Australia (1971)
File:Gibeau Orange Julep01.JPG, Gibeau Orange Julep, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
File:Tonneau Bistro Okinawa.JPG, Large barrel-shaped bistro and bar in Okinawa City, Japan
File:Pysanka Museum.JPG, The Pysanka or Painted Easter Egg Museum in Kolomyia, Ukraine
File:高跟鞋教堂.jpg, The High-Heel Wedding Church in Taiwan
File:Kindergarten Wolfartsweier14112016 2.JPG, Wolfartsweier Cat Kindergarten in Germany
File:Fish shaped building.jpg, Office building of the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) in Hyderabad, India
File:Twistee Treat ~ Minden.jpg, A Twistee Treat restaurant in Minden, Ontario, Canada
File:Goulburn Big Merino 006.JPG, The Big Merino in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia.
File:Giant Koala Tourist Attraction.jpg, Giant Koala, Dadswells Bridge, Victoria, Australia.
File:Tuborg Bottle, Copenhagen!.jpg, The Tuborg Bottle in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Buildings in the United States

File:Lucy the Elephant.jpg, Lucy the Elephant in Margate City, New Jersey (1902)
File:Brown Derby Restaurant, Los Angeles, Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield.jpg, The original Brown Derby in Los Angeles, California (1926)
File:Big Duck.JPG, The Big Duck in Flanders, New York (1931)
File:CornWaterTowerRochesterMNday.jpg, Corn cob water tower in Rochester, Minnesota (1931)
File:Hot Cha Beer, Long Beach, California LCCN2017709395.tif, Hot Cha Cafe, now Koffee Pot Cafe; Long Beach, California (ca. 1932)
File:The Bottle, Alabama.jpg, A Nehi Bottle located near Auburn, Alabama, in an area referred to as " The Bottle" (destroyed by fire in 1933)
File:Benewah Milk Bottle.JPG, Benewah Milk Bottle in Spokane, Washington (1935)
File:Bono'sHistoricOrange.JPG, Bono's Orange Stand in Fontana, California (1936); used to sell California orange juice to hot drivers who all lacked air conditioning at that time.
File:Collinsville watertower.jpg, World's Largest Catsup Bottle water tower in Collinsville, Illinois (1949)
File:Wigwam motel 1.jpg, Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona (1950)
File:Coney Island 2007.JPG, Coney Island Hot Dog Stand in Bailey, Colorado (1966)
File:CabazonDinosaurs-BuildingShapedLikeDinosaur.jpg, At Cabazon Dinosaurs in Cabazon, California; this dinosaur's belly holds a souvenir shop
File:Novelty sign for Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant (Atlanta, Georgia, 2006).jpg, The Big Chicken in Marietta, Georgia
File:Randy's donuts1 edit1.jpg, Randy's Donuts (1953) in Inglewood, California
File:The Donut Hole drive-through stand in La Puente in Los Angeles County, California 15467u.tif, The Donut Hole in La Puente, California
File:Shell Station-1.jpg, Shell Service Station in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
File:Library (17010263631).jpg, Kansas City Public Library's parking garage (2004)
File:Tail-o-thePup.jpg, Tail O' the Pup hot dog stand in California
File:Dog Bark Park, Cottonwood, Idaho.jpg, Dog Bark Park, Cottonwood, Idaho
File:Binoculars Building.jpg, The Chiat/Day Building (1991), by Frank Gehry, in Venice, California.
File:Teapot Dome Service Station, Zillah WA.jpg, Teapot Dome Service Station in Zillah, Washington.
File:MammyCupboard4Sept2008Front.jpg, "Mammy's Cupboard" restaurant, Adams County, Mississippi (1940)

Statues

File:Paul Bunyan and Babe statues Bemidji Minnesota crop.JPG, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Bemidji, Minnesota, US (1936)
File:Dinosaur Park.jpg, Dinosaur Park sculpture of a Tyrannosaurus rex in Rapid City, South Dakota, US (1936)
File:Klamath-CA-Babe.jpg, Babe the Blue Ox at Trees of Mystery in Klamath, California, US (1949)
File:GoldenDriller.jpg, Golden Driller statue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US (1953)
File:Paul Bunyan Portland.jpg, Paul Bunyan statue in Portland, Oregon, US (1959)
File:JohnnyKaw.JPG, Johnny Kaw statue in Manhattan, Kansas, US (1966)
File:Durhamdinosaur.jpg, Apatosaurus statue at North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, US (1967)
File:Akeley-Minnesota-Paul-Bunyan.jpg, Paul Bunyan statue in Akeley, Minnesota, US
File:Harvey Rabbit in Reedville, Oregon.JPG, Harvey statue at Harvey Marine in Aloha, Oregon, US
File:Catoosa Blue Whale 2.jpg, Blue Whale of Catoosa in Catoosa, Oklahoma in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada (2000)
File:HaywardMuskie-061-050507.jpg, World's Largest Muskellunge in Hayward, Wisconsin, US at the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
File:Big fruit outside Cromwell, Central Otago.jpg, Big fruit outside Cromwell, Central Otago, New Zealand
File:Kiwi360 Yellow.JPG, Kiwi fruit in Te Puke, New Zealand
Giant Toonie Monument Reverse Side-Campbellford-Ontario-20210903.jpg, Giant Canadian two-dollar coin Monument, Campbellford, Ontario, Canada

See also

* Australia's big things
* Ice hotels, temporary hotels made of ice and snow, found in the coldest regions of the world
* John Margolies, a photographer who specialized in roadside attractions, including novelty architecture
* List of world's largest roadside attractions
* Muffler Men, oversized molded fiberglass sculptures used to promote roadside businesses
* New Zealand's big things

References

External links

Large Canadian roadside attractions



The American Roadside: News and updates on America's fading roadside attractions

Tacky Tourist Photos

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