For a fast food chain that only started in 1953, McDonald's restaurants have become more than just a household name, they've become culturally iconic. The McDonald's brand has changed our way of eating dinner at a table, to eating in the car.
Pictured above is the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, California. The second McDonald's ever built, it features two yellow steel arches at either side of the restaurant threaded through the wedge shape of the building. Designed by architect Stanley Clark Meston, who was hired by the McDonald's brothers in 1953 for the design of their restaurant, the McDonald's building is a modernist architectural achievement.
By using the Golden Arches as a structurally functional aspect of the design, Meston created a Modernist design that was instantly recognizable in popular culture. The arches marked a change in American advertising, it was now the architecture as the advertising. When people were driving down the road, they could see the golden arches from far away enough to not drive past it. This set McDonald's apart from other fast-food drive in restaurants who simply had a large sign bearing the restaurant name and logo on the roof
McDonald's also followed the trend of designing the parking in a restaurant to be circular, so that cars were an equal distance from the take-out window, as seen below:
Inside McDonald's restaurants, gleaming red and white ceramic and stainless steel gave the impression of cleanliness to customers. This didn't matter that much, however, as customers never really went into the restaurant, only up to the take out window, then they ate in their cars.
In 1954 Ray Croc began franchising McDonald's outside of California, and although the naysayers thought that a McDonald's would never work anywhere outside of the warm California climate, McDonald's took off in Croc's Illinois location. Croc later ended up buying the McDonald's name from the brothers, and the rest is history.
Off topic, but check out this art nouveau style A&W lamp I came across in my image search:
Take that, Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Bravo. But when was that little maple leaf added for the benefit of patriotic Canadians?
ReplyDeleteI'm having trouble getting google to give me an answer to that one. However, I did find out that Canadians invented the McFlurry in 1997. Another milestone in Canadian history.
ReplyDeleteBa-bap bap-bap baaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI suspect that little Canadian Maple Leaf has little to do with Patriotism, so don't worry Shales. It may have to do with Legal concerns and regions pertaining to the MacDonalds franchises alloted here in Canada. Needless to say, Mickey D's is Mickey D's regardless of where I've been in the world. They're all the same. They're everywhere!
(^_-)