AROUND HOME : Notes on Formica and Garden and Animal Events : Fifties Formica

FUNNY, ISN’T IT, how an inconspicuous shape can capture the spirit of an era? For instance, the zigzag profile of Art Deco skyscrapers, from Rockefeller Center to Los Angeles City Hall, evokes the late 1920s and ‘30s. Similarly, boomerang shapes got under the skin of ‘50s designers, from Southern California’s kidney-shaped swimming pools and Isamu Noguchi’s “organic” coffee table to the mobiles that Alexander Calder sculpted with amoeboid metal discs. Nor were period cars immune to the fad, as their wasp-waists and “aerodynamic” tail fins prove. (Indeed, Chrysler’s “forward look” logo superimposed two boomerangs.)

So to celebrate its 75th anniversary (in 1988), Formica Corp. has revived its classic pattern of overlapping abstract boomerang forms designed by Raymond Loewy--of Coldspot refrigerator (1934), Studebaker cars (1945 and 1961) and Electrolux vacuum cleaner (1939) fame. Originally designated Skylark, the revived pattern was re-named--you guessed it--Boomerang, no doubt to further cash in on the current rage for ‘50s nostalgia.

And what a strong force that nostalgia is: No one 35 or older can gaze at Loewy’s random doodles without re-living childhood memories. Like back-yard barbecues and “I Love Lucy,” Skylark played a part in the split-level dream; according to company statistics, Formica-brand laminate was specified in one-third of the 6 million suburban houses built during the 1945-’53 postwar building boom.

Formica’s name derives from its original purpose as an electrical insulator replacing costly and brittle mica, which was made from layers of paper and resins bonded together by heat and pressure. In 1927, Formica’s search for new markets led to the material’s transformation into the wipe-clean, stain- and scratch-resistant laminate familiar today.

Adorned with lithographed images of wood grain and marble, Formica soon graced roadside diners as well as staterooms and salons in the Queen Mary. So successful and ubiquitous was the product that it quickly passed into the language as a generic term, like thermos and plexiglass. And with Loewy’s Boomerang pattern, Formica passed into our collective unconscious as an image of American culture.

Formica-brand laminate is available throughout Southern California, including California Panel and Veneer in Cerritos, Harter’s Distributing Co. in North Hollywood, Frost Hardwood Lumber Co. in San Diego. Or telephone (800) 524-0159.