The Vernacular Gasoline Station: Examples from Illinois and Wisconsin

Abstract

Vernacular gasoline stations, those designed jointly by contractor and owner, have not shared in the recent attention directed to gasoline stations as landscape features. Instead, that growing attention has been directed largely to stations designed by architects. This study, based on extensive field survey and intensive interviews, demonstrates that the remaining vernacular gasoline stations in Illinois and Wisconsin are manifestations of special places and time, rural and small town settings between 1925 and 1940. Vernacular designing was conditioned by an uncritical reference to an archetypal gasoline station form rather than to a profit-minded manipulation of imagery. As a result, the vernacular stations were integral parts of their environments and they remain prominent landscape features clearly communicating their origins. The vernacular emphasis on form recommends the future study of the gasoline station as an architectural ensemble.