The main architectural styles on Route 66
The Victorian style is characteristic of the mid to late nineteenth century and relates to the era of British Queen Victoria (1837-1901). It refers to several other styles, the most common of which are the Renaissance Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate and Greek Revival. Among the cities that have featured this style, Chicago and Los Angeles are prominent. In Chicago, the bulk of the Victorian houses that survived the Great Fire of 1870 are in the Old Town and Lincoln Park neighborhoods. In Los Angeles, remnants remain in the residential neighborhoods of Angelino Heights and Westlake.
Art Deco architecture, which originated in France at the end of World War I, spread to many countries, including the United States, where this architectural style persisted until the 1940s. It reached its peak in the early 1930s. It is characterized by the purity of lines, the simplification of geometric forms, the whiteness of the facades. Many theaters, public buildings, churches and skyscrapers of the early twentieth century in the United States use this architecture (St. Wenceslaus Church and Century Tower in Chicago, Tulsa Union Depot, Tower Station U-Drop Inn Café in Shamrock, Kimo Theatre in Albuquerque, El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Public Library, etc.). Tulsa, Oklahoma, is one of the cities where Art Deco thrives and is a must-see.
The googie style, with many other names(doo-wop, space age, populuxe, etc.), developed during the 1940s-50s and is related to the atomic age and the conquest of space. It affected both vehicles (the "beautiful Americans") and signs, especially those with neon lights, and the very form of modest buildings (motels, cafes, gas stations, casinos, domes, etc.), but also more important (universities and convention centers). In Googie architecture, boomerang, teardrop or star shapes, even flying saucer (!) are often used. Ironically, its rounded, geometric and very futuristic style for the time has become very retro or vintage, to use a fashionable Anglo-Saxon expression.
The Chicago School style emerged after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and was represented by such names as William Le Baron Jenney, Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root, William Holabird and Martin Roche. It was this school that developed and generalized the use of steel structures for the design of skyscrapers. These constructions quickly became recurrent in order to rationalize space as much as possible. The goal was to combine aesthetic and practical considerations. Stores and restaurants were installed on the lower floors and offices on the upper floors. The general style of their large square structure was neoclassical. The first skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building, a 10-story building built between 1884 and 1885 by William Le Baron Jenney. It was destroyed after its closure in 1931.
The Prairie School deals with residential architecture. One of its great names was Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), whose numerous creations can be seen in Oak Park, in the suburbs of Chicago(Frank Lloyd Wright's house and studio, more than twenty private residences, Unity Temple, etc.) but also in Chicago itself (Frederick C. Robie's house) and in cities on Route 66 such as Dwight (First National Bank), Springfield (Dana Thomas' house) or Tulsa (Westhope, known as Richard Lloyd Jones' house).
The Pueblo Revival architecture (or Santa Fe style) was born in the southwestern United States around 1910. It draws its inspiration from the architecture of traditional pueblos but also from the Spanish missions that were numerous in the region. It is characterized by adobe buildings of one or two levels with flat roofs, bordered by parapets that extend thick walls. The latter are provided with openings through which vigas (wooden beams) protrude. The meeting of this architecture with Art Deco gave rise to the Pueblo Deco architecture.
What to see and where?
The gas stations, whether they are iconic brands like Philips 66 or Sinclair, or more classic ones like Texaco, Shell and others - still visible today on the route - or brands like WB (Whiting Brothers) that have disappeared over time, very often borrow the googie style. The notable exception is Shamrock's Art Deco Tower Station & U-Drop Inn and Tower Café.
The same is truefor the motels, which you will encounter endlessly along the route. Among the many towns we passed through, we will particularly mention Tucumcari, famous for its main street (Route 66) lined with dozens of vintage motels.
The diners, whose concept comes from the first dining cars, are prefabricated restaurants of parallelepiped shape, with a style that often mixes Art Deco and googie with stainless steel used for the counters, formica for the tables, chequered floors, skai (often red) for the benches or the bar seats, and neon signs. Among them, Valentine's Diners are the representatives of a famous chain of diners created in Kansas by Arthur Valentine in the early 1930s. To the diners, we can associate the streetcars, of a more modest size, installed rather in the cities, and whose models which survived are rather rare today (not to miss that of Gardner in Illinois).
Public buildings often use Victorian or Art Deco styles. All major cities have taken care to restore these buildings. Among the most remarkable are the Old Courthouse in St. Louis and the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage, and the city halls of St. Louis (Renaissance Revival style), Pasadena, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Among the private buildings, it is worth noting those that sometimes deviate from the most common styles, such as the Shrine Mosquee in Springfield, which has an Arabian style.
The old theaters that you will find along Route 66(Rialto in Joliet, Wildey in Edwardsville, Coleman in Miami, Kimo in Albuquerque, theaters in Downtown Los Angeles, Chinese Theater in Hollywood, etc.) are essentially Art Deco style.
Churches, temples, chapels and other religious buildings are found everywhere and in great numbers, especially in the Bible Belt, from southern Illinois to Texas. The styles are multiple and vary greatly from one region to another. Among the most famous buildings are the Old and New Cathedrals in St. Louis, and Our Lady Queen of Angels-La Placita Church in Downtown Las Vegas.
Structures. We're talking about bridges here. Whether they are wire mesh bridges (the most common) or concrete or even wooden bridges, some are true works of art, many are closed to traffic, which does not mean that they are not maintained and preserved. Among the most famous, we can mention, in order : the Ruby Street Bridge in Joliet, Illinois, which is a bascule bridge whose particularity is to be one of the first crossings on Route 66; the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, between Illinois and Missouri, which spans the Mississippi River northeast of St. Louis, with a slight bend in its course, and is pedestrian only; the Devil's Elbow Bridge, lost in the middle of the forest, south of Rolla, Missouri; the Brush Creek Bridge, west of Riverton, Kansas, is the last of the three Arch Bridge bridges that were on the route of Route 66. The Cyrus Avery Route 66 Memorial Bridge, formerly the 11th Street Arkansas River Bridge, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a superb example of an Art Deco bridge; it is reserved for pedestrians and runs parallel to the route of Route 66. The Rock Street Bridge, at the exit of Sapulpa (also in Oklahoma), is a magnificent pedestrian bridge, metallic and now covered with rust. The Pony Bridge (or Canadian River Bridge), in Bridgeport (Oklahoma) is one of the longest bridges to cross on the route (1.2 km). The Rio Puerco Bridge, about 20 miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico (Route 66 from 1930-40), is also pedestrian. The Old Trails Arch Bridge over the Colorado River, accessible from Topock (in Arizona) and Moabi Regional Park (in California), is reserved for pipeline traffic. Finally, the Colorado Street Bridge (or "Suicide Bridge"), located on the 1930-40 alignment of Route 66, is west of Pasadena.
Two special mentions for the Sugar Creek Covered Bridge in Glenarm, Illinois, a little off Route 66, which is one of the last bridges of its type; and for the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, also off Route 66, which was purchased from the City of London for reconstruction in the United States.
To all these buildings, edifices and structures that dot Route 66, we should add others, exceptional or very localized along the route: the arch of St. Louis, the capitols of Springfield and Oklahoma City, the round barns of the Great Plains, including the one in Arcadia, the adobe buildings (bricks made of dried earth, hardened in the sun) of Santa Fe (Palace of the Governors, New Mexico Museum of Art, etc.) and of the pueblos of the state of California.) and the pueblos of New Mexico, and, of course, the modern skyscrapers of Chicago (Willis Tower, John Hancock Center, Trump International Hotel & Tower, etc.) and Downtown Los Angeles (U.S. Bank Tower, Aon Center, Gaz Company Tower, Bank of America Center, etc.).
