Today: Architectural Record of 1963.

Welcome to hell:

The pages are full of these Brutalist bastards. They’re all institutional structures. No one building a big proud skyscraper was particularly interested in raw concrete.

A big round of applause for lift-slab technique:

This was a famous hotel at the time, a new addition to a downtown in a part of town that had sagged for years. It had a Bucky Fuller dome on top, with a restaurant.

 

Last time I was there I changed into a holiday suit to get on a float and get towed up the Nicollet Mall for the Holidazzle. It's been a while.

Another proud example of the lift-slab technique! And what a dullard it was. SOM, of course.

Nah, don't need windows on that side

This next one, I like. As I always say: One or two of these makes a city great. Nothing but buildings like these make a city rote and routine.

Hard to find it today.

There was a brief vogue for the rippling accordion facade. When you come across something like this today, you know you’re seeing a relic of another era.

It's different! I'll allow it.

The problem, of course, is that you don’t know if it’s an elementary school, a post office, a city hall, or a bank.

An ad, reminding you that GOLD was a high-class hue for the stinkiest room in the house . . .

And that 1963 was also fussy and cluttered.

But that was what people wanted. What they were given . . . was this.

We'll end with an ambivalent note. I love this ad - hate the hat, but love the ad. But. She seems too small for the escalator.

And she doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

 

 
   

 

 

 

It's Schick today.

Nothing will vex that balloon now:

“Deep down where the beard begins” makes it sound as if this thing really digs into your face.

The Auto Model, for when you have to shave in the car on the way to work because you overslept after a night of really tying one on, as all the functioning suburban alcoholics said.

Bronco like electric shaver! Bronco think it small animal trembling with fear

$17.50 would be about $200 in current money. Practically a semester’s tuition back then.

This is a fascinating relic: the opening array of SCHICKs, the appearance of the workmen, then NOTHING HAPPENS. No sound.

You can figure out what this is, right?

The black rectangle would have the names and faces of this week’s stars.

The Gisele MacKenzie Show is an American musical variety television program that was broadcast on NBC from September 28, 1957, to March 29, 1958. Star Gisele MacKenzie sang, played her violin, danced, and acted with guest stars each week. She was supported by The Joe Pryor Group (singers) and The Curfew Boys (dancers)

It foundered, alas. It was up against two popular shows, and suffered from too many notes from the advertising agency, the network, the producers, etc.

If you’d like to visit another culture entirely, go here. (Unembeddable.) It's just sweet and funny and effortlessly civilized.

Well now THIS gets everyone’s attention:

I wonder who she was.

Charming lass:

A search for the model led to another site which had a two-minute Lady Schick ad with Gloria Swanson, and I had one of those lightbulb moments when Gloria showed a print ad.

I know that ad. 1959.

I think this ad pushed a few boundaries. If not a few buttons.

That'll do. Tomorrow: the END of the Hiatus.