Raygun Gothic

This article is about the visual art style. For the metal sculpture, see Raygun Gothic Rocketship.
A 1950s coffee shop sign evocative of then-nascent spaceflight on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Raygun Gothic is a catchall term for a visual and architectural style that, when applied to retrofuturistic science fiction environments, incorporates various aspects of the Googie, Streamline Moderne, and Art Deco architectural styles. Academic Lance Olsen has characterised Raygun Gothic as "a tomorrow that never was".[1] It is inspired by Space Age, raypunk, and atompunk subcultures.

The style has also been associated with architectural indulgence, and situated in the context of the golden age of modern design due to its use of features such as "single-support beams, acute angles, brightly colored paneling", as well as "shapes and cutouts showing motion".[2]

  1. ^ Olsen, Lance. "'The Future of Narrative': Speculative Criticism: or Thirteen Ways of Speaking in an Imperfect Tense". ParaDoxa. 4 (11): 375. Archived from the original on 2007-11-08. Retrieved 2007-11-03.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nac was invoked but never defined (see the help page).