Best Products Architecture

I remember these buildings from the photos in the old Best catalog that we devoured as kids (the back, which had all the toys).

I've searched on the web for photos of these buildings as you have, and there doesn't even seem to be that much on Best Products, period. Before this Ping, as has happened with me and other Pingers many times before, I had begun to wonder whether Best Products ever existed, or if I had made the whole thing up.

As I recall from the photos in the catalogs, there was another one that was built to look as though it was completely upside-down.

Aw, that's right Joseph! There was an upside-down store! Good memory.

A little deja vu over this one, Paul. They tore down the one that was here after it sat empty for about 5 years, and put up a new Safeway.

Congratulations, Maria! You win the prize.

Er, no prize.

But I am now back in the lead of duplicate Pings, 3-2 over Ryan! Yes!

Man, I KNEW I'd seen this topic somewhere before, but somehow my brain wasn't functioning when I tried to search for it and I didn't find it. Yay for Maria!

I don't know if the two Pings are quite the same. The first Ping seems to be energetic, with a sense of new discovery--it's a call for more information on this topic. The second Ping (would it be considered a different Ping if Paul had included "revisited" in the title?) carries a disappointed tone, presumably because the information super highway has failed to meet the call for more info.

Plus, more of the buildings have been demolished since the first Ping, I'm sure--there is an additional sense of loss: "the sad thing . . ."

As an aside, many architecture scholars simply concluded that the Best showrooms were simply gimmick. They were meant to cause a sensation, but they were not real architecture because the facades did not relate at all to the inside of the store, nor did the different shapes "do" anything. In that way, they didn't really question the big box retail architecture--they only disguised the truth, which was that they were exactly big box retail architecture. Once inside, you got the same thing as you did everywhere else.

The demolishing of the crumbling wall features of the Houston store, which basically left a big box retail store behind can be used to support this point.

On the other hand, the store which allowed trees to pass through it seemed closer to making a true architectural statement, though, disappointingly, the idea wasn't carried out as far as it could have been.

I assume this had less to do with the inabilities of the architect to do what he/she wanted, and more to do with having to please a customer who didn't want to make an architectural statement, but an advertising statement.

The other take is that SITE was trying to do big sculpture. I agree that the buildings do represent sculptural qualities in their final form.
But they are not sculpture. These seem to be big box buildings with a sculptural overlay.

To me, the buildings, as architecture, do seem to represent more of a gimmick. The buildings themselves don't really turn the world of retail architecture on its ear because they don't offer anything new besides a visual trick or an engineering trick. Such tricks are cool, but they don't have staying power, which is why the buildings are disappearing once the original owner went out of business.

But that doesn't mean they are bad. I appreciate the successful attempt to make something different, and, obviously, memorable. The buildings certainly were fun and entertaining to look at (photos of them, at least). If that's all they did, maybe that was enough. They broke up the monotony of the big box.

I don't know if I'd be happy if the idea caught on and other retailers decided to make copies or even try to outdo each other. I couldn't imagine the usual American retail highway with big box building after building each more outlandish than the one before it.

They're fun to talk about, though.

It is a shame to say it, but the one in Sacramento--the one with the corner that slid out is no more. It is a Best Buy (electronics and appliance store) and they redid the architecture. I now has a big main entrance and there is no longer any hint of the origina sliding corner. I won't go in that store because of what they did to a wonderfull piece of whimisical architecture that was a unique landmark in my city.