Speaking of the Neon Museum, it’s visitors’ centre is located inside the historic La Concha Motel lobby. La Concha was demolished in 2005 but the lobby was saved and later moved to the museum site. It was designed in 1961 by Paul Revere Williams and sat next to the Riviera Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The Atomic, Space Age shapes are an example of Southern California Googie architecture. One historian has described the Googie style as ‘cartoons in steel and glass’. A tad harsh but you see where he’s coming from.
When M. K. Doumani commissioned Williams to design his motel, he had to compete with the likes of the Desert Inn, Dunes and Tropicana. He wanted something that would stand out and be memorable. The motel was built on a shoe string budget with two of Doumani’s sons working on the construction. The money saved was spent on a towering sign whose base was the now famous La Concha logo… But that’s another story.
