The Drive-In, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914-1941

The service station, the drive-in market and the supermarket--institutions that today are so ubiquitous that they scarcely seem to require comment--ushered in new ways of conceiving and organizing commercial space, according to Longstreth, who teaches American studies at George Washington University. As cars and parking became the primary components in the construction of new retail centers, they turned shopping from a ""pedestrian activity"" into a ""park-n-shop"" one. Shopping as we know it--with large parking lots, and unencumbered, unassisted movement through vast aisles of ever-changing merchandise--was a product of the early 20th-century car culture initially specific to Los Angeles, Longstreth asserts. His book relies heavily on accompanying documentary photographs of the streamlined, modernist service stations, fanciful drive-in markets and palatial supermarkets that dotted the Southern California landscape in the prewar years. Most, if not all, of the buildings these photographs depict have been changed or no longer exist--falling victim to the shifting economy of the car culture that spawned them. Longstreth's argument, focusing on abstract spatial relationships between exterior and interior, and public and private, isn't always alive to the peculiar, often ghostly, beauty of these places, such as the early supermarkets designed as Moorish palaces to attract road-side customers. Though he unearths intriguing information and a cache of fascinating photos, Longstreth's study may prove too dry for general readers, the text aimed primarily at architects and urban planners; one is left wishing for more cultural history. 164 illustrations. (Apr.)