Architecture and Design of Gas Stations Prior to 1970

Gas Stations Before 1970

Building design, scale, and location for a commercial store can have a great effect on its consumer. Having a roadside structure that makes it easy to access and purchase a product is something that is very important, especially when it is trying to market a very common and indispensable product like gasoline. In the early 1920s, companies advertised their gas stations by using distinctive logos, colors, slogans, and building shapes. A very common vernacular gas station style that used these methods of advertisement was the house style. This design evolved from the curbside station and then later developed into the house with canopy and bays. As the needs of the customer and the economy changed, the house style was no longer as effective, which lead to the development of the oblong box style. This evolution can be seen through various changes in gas station building plan, design, materiality, and location.

Primitive gas station designs are recognized as vernacular architecture. This building style can be defined as an area of architectural theory that studies the structures made by firsthand builders without the intervention of professional architects. Vernacular designers rationalize their actions differently because they all create out of the smallness of their own experiences. Gas stations are usually viewed from behind the wheel of a car. Certain elements or characteristics will attract the attention of the customer, compelling the driver to stop. Gas stations, sometimes referred to as filling or service stations, were specifically designed to sell gasoline and other closely related products such as lubricants, tires, and batteries for the automobile. Between 1920 and 1970, traditional stat...

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... roofed station with a canopy supported by four brick columns covering two front driveways. Standard Oil of Indiana also created a very similar design shortly after with the addition of globelike light fixtures (see Figure 11).

Vernacular architecture builds off of previous buildings to create something that fixes the problems or faults in the models before. In order to properly drain a car of oil, gas stations began to equip themselves with grease pits and car washing floors. By 1925, most gasoline stations sites contained open trenches with walls of poured concrete or masonry in order to perform mechanical work on a car. After 1925 rotary lifts replaced these pits or trenches and the addition of one or more covered bays were added to existing house stations or on the construction of new stations to cover the washing and lubricating floors (see Figure 12).