There are some eras whose design strikes modern eyes as ugly, garish, a crime against good taste. Usually the current generation judges the previous one harshly while romanticizing an era a few decades back, and then comes to appreciate what was once derided. The cycle repeats over and over.
But sometimes you come across an era whose ugliness is not debatable. It's not a matter of subjective analysis. It's truth. That era would be the end of the Sixties through the mid 70s, when American design went barking mad - either from drugs, or more likely, to assure actual drug users that you, too were cool. Flashbak says:
I wouldn't call it Modernist. That would imply restraint. Take a look - I'd embed pictures, but the site deservs the traffic. Go here.
Here's another time capsule: an old shoe store, rediscovered like a shop buried by Vesuvius. Abandoned for 40 years!
Back to the late 60s: here's an example of a motel room c. 1968. (It's an Admiral Benbow Inn, if you're curious. Not a chain that made its way up here.)
It's woody, heavy, but that lamp is hip in a bulbous, regrettable way. Compare it to the Bloomington Howard Johnson, built in the early 60s:
One is looking to the future; the other seems to be scrambling back to the past.
