BOWLARAMA: The Architecture of Mid-Century Bowling

A Book Review

At a recent meeting of the Orange County BIA, I ran into Eric Nelson, our client for the Covina Bowl project. He asked if I knew about this book – I ordered it on the spot.

Chris Nichols is a longtime preservationist and senior editor at Los Angeles magazine and has advocated for endangered buildings all over Southern California.  Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley, Covina Bowl was his family’s favorite haunt.  Adriene Biondo is the former chair of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee.  Together they tell the story of bowling from prehistoric times and ancient Egypt to adaptations (and highs and lows) in medieval England and Germany, to early American examples (the oldest remaining “modern” bowling alley dates to 1908 near Milwaukee).  The book covers technological developments from stone balls to a special kind of wood that only came from the Caribbean and that only lasted maybe six months, to modern balls.  Similar innovations in the size and type of pins are described.

But the story changes dramatically with World War II, Hollywood, and the development of the automated pin setting machine.  Bowling was added to numerous US military bases for the entertainment of the troops.  Hollywood stars, notably silent movie star Harold Lloyd, helped popularize the sport, and the automated machine replaced dangerous slave-like child labor to set pins.  With returning servicemen flooding back to California, bowling exploded in the post-war Golden State.  In 1936 there were only twelve bowling alleys and seventy-five lanes in all of Southern California; by 1947, that number grew to 166 bowling alleys and 1800 lanes, and continued to grow in the next decade.  And this surge happened to coincide with the modern movement in architecture and its particular Los Angeles variant, Googie, named after a restaurant designed by John Lautner.

In this early post-war period, SoCal’s orange groves were rapidly replaced with suburban neighborhoods and the bowling alley transformed into a community entertainment center complete with restaurants, bars with headline entertainment, banquet rooms, childcare and retail shops.  A Long Beach architectural firm, Powers Daley & DeRosa, designed their masterpiece Covina Bowl in 1956 which became the first of their many Googie style bowling alleys, and was replicated across America.

The book goes on to document mid-century interiors, innovations in equipment like the subterranean ball return, graphics, color, entertainment and fashion.  It ends with “Fall and Rise” about the demise of these entertainment palaces and efforts to save those left.  Some have been turned into grocery stores or other entertainment venues.

Our Covina Bowl rehabilitation project is featured through the efforts of Trumark Homes and Eric Nelson, along with Architectural Historian Jennifer Mermilliod.  The building had been vacant for several years with all bowling equipment removed and left to rot.  The Los Angeles Conservancy had declared it the most endangered building in the Los Angeles region.  Together with the City of Covina, the team crafted a plan to save the significant Googie portions of the building and to redevelop the rest of the site into a Googie-inspired housing development.  We stabilized the building, restored the original colors, stonework, lighting fixtures, uncovered long-covered-up windows, and saved this landmark.

BOWLARAMA is a wonderful journey through time with a special focus on mid-century and Googie designs, that explains this fun building type with a storytelling documentary style and lots of great images. If you are like me, a native Southern Californian, it brings great memories and as an architect, a significant influence on my design sense.