Buildings in Disguise: Architecture That Looks Like Animals, Food, and Other Things

We love this book. It is creative and helps to bring forth related memories and stories.

Why not plan a road trip from the Elephant to the Madonna Inn? I doubt that any nation on Planet Earth has an equal variety of odd-ball buildings that kids would love to visit, have their picture taken with, and take home for Show and Tell. Lucy the Elephant near Atlantic City has a window in her butt, and used to be a bathhouse where you could change into your clothes after a tough day on the beach. The Teapot Gas station in Zillah is sort of a gateway to wineries in the area. The ORIGINAL White Castle in Wichita is about the size of a garage. The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD is often the site of a Prairie Home Companion show. It would be such fun to do a BIG book of Weird America with lots more sites to visit. But this one has plenty, and lots of possibilities for the classroom using mapping, Google, and virtual travel. The book has maps front and back with many states devoid of sites. There's the challenge for the classroom--to find something in every state and build a national directory of nutty architecture. Start your engines!

This review first appeared in the "Ephrata (PA) Review": This book's cover catches (merited) attention and readers' imagination; it features a building shaped as an elephant. Lucy-constructed of nearly 1 million pieces of wood, 200 kegs of nails and 4 tons of bolts and beams-makes her home in Margate, New Jersey. Erected in 1881, the elephant is the nation's oldest example of mimetic architecture-buildings that mimic other objects. Designed by engineer and land-developer James V. Lafferty Jr., Lucy was meant to attract potential buyers of land that Lafferty owned near the growing seaside resort of Atlantic City. The marketing ploy paid off, hugely, and residents grew fond of the community's "mascot." In 1976 Lucy was designated a National Historic Landmark. Travelers have purchased gas at stations designed to look like teapots, gas cans, pagodas, even an iceberg. They've stayed in lodgings resembling giant teepees, windmills, and ships. They've eaten at restaurants and food stands shaped like milk bottles, dogs, watermelons, castles, roosters, and ice cream cones. This attractive book, highlighting 35 still existing mimetic structures, provides fun and facts as it explores a whimsical, little-known facet of Americana.

I ordered this book for the library where I work. My main reason was to have something on hand about Lucy, the Margate Elephant, since it's in our area. I would have been satisfied at almost anything on a child's reading level, but was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the book. The photos are large and plentiful, mostly in full color, and printed on high-quality glossy paper. The text is not difficult yet doesn't talk down to the reader. I've watched several tv shows on this type of architecture, yet there are buildings in this book I'd never heard of before. Likewise, there is more explanation about some familiar buildings than I'd come across before. At the end the author provides a bibliography of books suitable for both children and adults. She has even starred adult books which will be of special interest to kids because of great illustrations or explanations. A list of websites is also given. The book is a total pleasure to look at, read and touch. I hope to see it on a list of award-winners sometime soon.

Some years ago a book was published, Learning From Las Vegas, in which the architecture along the ever famous strip was discussed, dissected, and photographed. Perhaps there was a picture of a hot dog stand shaped like a hot dog or a restaurant shaped like a tepee. As is shown in this recent volume by Joan Marie Arbogast one needn't go to Las Vegas to see odd or funny or strange, certainly attention getting buildings. Some of the architecture featured in Arbogast's book is called "mimetic architecture" because the buildings mimic other objects, a duck, a dog or an elephant. Lucy, the Margate Elephant in New Jersey, was built in 1881. Lucy has a main room somewhat smaller than a two-car garage and car size ears. We find structures by imaginative builders who sought to capture motorists with eye-catching gas stations, one shaped like a teapot another like a gigantic gas can. There are motels in the shapes of wigwams and river boats, and restaurants built like milk bottles, watermelons, and castles. "Buildings in Disguise" is an entertaining trip through American offbeat architecture, yesterday and today. - Gail Cooke