
John Margolies
Margolies
was
drawn
to
mid-century
roadside
architecture
from
a
young
age.
On
family
car
trips,
these
commercial
structures
designed
to
seduce
weary
travelers
called
to
him
even
as
his
parents
repeatedly
refused
to
stop.
Margolies
took
this
boyhood
unrequited
love
and
turned
it
into
a
30+
year
photography
career
that
took
him
all
across
America.In
his
travels,
Margolies
took
more
than
11,000
photographs
of
vernacular
buildings
across
America’s
criss-crossing
network
of
highways,
main
streets,
and
back
roads.
Though
many
of
his
images
involved
the
architecture
that
defined
car
travel—motels,
diners,
gas
stations,
and
the
like—he
also
photographed
the
purely
American... Read More
quirk
that
lined
the
roads:
buildings
shaped
like
dinosaurs,
a
giant
pair
of
dice
on
the
mini-golf
course,
a
gator-mouth
entrance
to
a
Florida
theme
park.This
eccentric
style
came
about
as
suburban
living
boomed
post-World
War
II,
necessitating
the
creation
of
more
paved
roads,
and
more
ways
to
bring
travelers
into
roadside
businesses.
New
building
materials
and
techniques
had
emerged,
allowing
for
playfully
eccentric
free-form
structures
to
pop
up.
Signs,
artifacts,
and
buildings
ranged
from
whimsical
to
psychedelic,
their
main
purpose
an
elaborate
enticement.
As
the
style
spread,
critics
derided
it
as
“tacky”,
“florid”,
and
“ugly”.
Margolies
strongly
disagreed:
in
his
mind,
these
ephemeral
pieces
better
expressed
the
story
of
20th
century
America
than
canonical
works
that
didn’t
reflect
the
everyday
experience
of
the
people
who
used
them.It
was
this
mindset
that
inspired
Margolies
to
drive
over
100,000
miles
capturing
a
unique
slice
of
American
architecture
and
history,
even
as
it
faded.
Much
of
what
he
photographed
is
now
gone.
A
few
times,
he
found
out
that
he’d
photographed
a
building
mere
days
before
it
was
demolished.His
treasure
trove
of
images
has
been
turned
into
quite
a
few
books,
most
notably
Roadside
America,
featuring
a
curated
set
of
around
400
photographs.
It
was
published
in
2010,
six
years
before
Margolies
passed
away
of
pneumonia
at
76.
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