Dingbat (building) - Name

Name

The first textual reference to the term "dingbat" was made by Reyner Banham in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies (1971). He credits the coining to architect Francis Ventre and describes them:

"... are normally a two-story walk-up apartment-block developed back over the full depth of the site, built of wood and stuccoed over. These are the materials that Rudolf Schindler and others used to build the first modern architecture in Los Angeles, and the dingbat, left to its own devices, often exhibits the basic characteristics of a primitive modern architecture. Round the back, away from the public gaze, they display simple rectangular forms and flush smooth surfaces, skinny steel columns and simple boxed balconies, and extensive overhangs to shelter four or five cars..."

While the word is sometimes said to reference dingbat in the sense of a "general term of disparagement," dingbat refers to the stylistic star-shaped decorations (reminiscent of typographic dingbats) that often garnish the stucco façades. These flourishes and other ornamental elements reflect the contemporary but more complex Googie architecture.