OP: White Towers

The MIT Press, 2007. Hardcover. Near Fine. 

White Tower Hamburgers, a fast food chain founded in Milwaukee in 1926, is an architectural icon. 

Unsubtly appropriating the White Castle (founded in 1921) aesthetic, “they have never displayed a sensitivity toward their surroundings, since their purpose has always been served by standing aggressively apart from their neighbors,” write architects Paul Hirshorn and Steven Izenour in their book dedicated to the business’s astute and effective mode of branding, White Towers, originally published in 1979.

Marking the evolution in style over the restaurant chain’s near 100-year run, the authors pinpoint the many ways in which White Towers telegraphed the tenets of their brand through architecture. “Those gleaming white (‘clean’), well-lighted (‘always open’), streamlined (‘fast and efficient’), human-scaled (‘friendly’) structures were three-dimensional billboards for their franchise.” Dozens of supporting black and white photographs drive home their point.

We’re pleased to offer the 2007 reissue of the book in hardcover, published when most White Tower locations had shuttered, no longer the beacon of a prosperous middle class they once were. Very Good with minor shelfwear.