TASCHEN

Taschen - John Margolies, Roadside America

The art of attraction -The native genius of America's mid-century automobile culture. Before the advent of corporate communications and architectural uniformity, America's built environment was a free-form landscape of individual expression. Signs, artifacts, and even buildings ranged from playful to eccentric, from deliciously cartoonish to quasipsychedelic.

Photographer John Margolies spent over three decades and drove more than 100,000 miles documenting these fascinating and endearingly artisanal examples of roadside advertising and fantasy structures, a fast-fading aspect of Americana.

This book brings together approximately 400 colour photographs of Main Street signs, movie theatres, gas stations, fast food restaurants, motels, roadside attractions, miniature golf courses, dinosaurs, giant figures and animals, and fantasy coastal resorts. In an age when online shopping and mega-malls have reconfigured American consumerism, stripping away idiosyncracy in favour of a bland homogeneity, Margolies's elegiac 30-year survey reminds us of a more innocent unpredictable and colourful past.

"... this title is a great talking point, its quirky but above all its an inspirational graphical demonstration of the individual that deserves to be remembered by all. " Falcatatimes.blogspot.com, United Kingdom

"Who needs Italy when we have Illinois? Sure, the Niles Leaning Tower may be half as tall and half as crooked as the one in Pisa. But if it doesn't inspire you, there are 400 other distinctly different destinations in John Margolies: Roadside America, including a doughnut-shaped doughnut shop, a whale-sized bait shop, and only-in-the-U.S. miniature golf courses." Readers Digest, New York

Taschen - John Margolies, Roadside America at Coggles.com

Hardcover, 31 x 25.7 cm (12.2 x 10.1 in.), 256 pages

ISBN: 978-3-8365-1173-5