The drive-in, the supermarket, and the transformation of commercial space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941
By: Richard Longstreth.
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
Subjects: Retail trade -- California -- Los Angeles Metropolitan Area -- History; Drive-in facilities -- California -- Los Angeles Metropolitan Area -- History; Supermarkets -- California -- Los Angeles Metropolitan Area -- History; Commercial buildings -- California -- Los Angeles Metropolitan Area -- History
Description: Richard Longstreth is one of the few architectural historians to focus on ordinary commercial buildings - buildings usually associated with commercial builders and real estate developers rather than architects and thus generally overlooked by historians of "high" architecture.

Here Longstreth explores the early development of two kinds of retail space that have become ubiquitous in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. One space, external, is devoted to the circulation and parking of automobiles on retail premises. Longstreth analyzes the origins of this development in the 1910s and 1920s, with the super service station and then the drive-in market.

The other type of space was introduced soon thereafter with the single-story supermarket, its interior designed for high-volume turnover of a large selection of goods with a minimum of staff assistance. Longstreth focuses on Los Angeles, the principal center for the development of both kinds of space, during the period from the mid-1910s to the early 1940s.

This richly illustrated study integrates architectural, cultural, economic, and urban factors to describe the evolution of retailing and how it has affected the urban landscape.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [182]-226) and index.