A vintage pump in the Vietnamese hills; a gas station in Madrid with a huge sombrero; a multi-hued futuristic gas station in Dubai – however the humble gas station, the landmark of our modern society, may look like it’s running out of road.
With the move away from hydrocarbons as governments scramble to combat global warming, compounded by fuel shortages from the Ukraine conflict and the resulting soaring prices, there is little doubt that the days of the internal combustion engine will likely soon be numbered.
For gas stations, whose history was closely linked to the rise of the automobile in the early 20th century, this could be the death knell – or at least trigger a profound restructuring.
In Moscow, the oldest gas station was built in the city center in the 1930s. Nine decades later, this sober cream and red building still stands there, in the shadow of the gold-domed Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Some gas stations have become landmarks in their own right, such as Blackwell’s Corner in the California desert. A giant billboard featuring James Dean’s face reminds motorists that the Rebel Without a Cause star made his last stop here before the accident that killed him 40 kilometers (25 miles) down the motorway .
A common element of most petrol stations is the canopy over the petrol pumps, which often serves as a marketing feature in addition to protection from the weather.
Some deserve to be listed as historical monuments, such as the Red Hill service station 170km north of London, whose futuristic 1960s ‘Pegasus’ design includes six circular canopies.
– Back to the country –
At night, the Union 76 gas station in Beverly Hills looks like a spaceship that has landed next to the palm trees on Little Santa Monica Boulevard. Considered a prime example of Googie architecture, it was chosen by British rocker Noel Gallagher for the cover of his debut album with the High Flying Birds in 2011.
But the canopies aren’t always so eye-catching.
In many places it’s just corrugated iron. At a typical gas station in Nimba County, Liberia, fuel is sold in cans and people use hoppers to fill their vehicles.
In Europe, many small village gas stations have closed.
In France there were just over 11,000 petrol stations in 2021, compared to 41,000 in the early 1980s. A key reason is competition from supermarkets, which can afford to charge lower margins.
“In the 2000s, we specialized in garage work and then vehicle washing,” said Francis Pousse, in charge of service stations at the auto industry association Mobilians.
“But margins continued to shrink, and given the investment required to modernize, many managers threw in the towel. And young people buying garages/gas stations are closing the gas station area,” he added.
How many still remember the long-gone era of small village petrol stations? In Roaix, north of Marseille, an Antar gas station sign and an old red petrol pump are a reminder that there wasn’t always a second-hand shop down the street.
Elsewhere, for example near Gjilan in Kosovo, some abandoned gas stations are simply disappearing under overgrown vegetation – possibly a harbinger of the fate of others as humanity descends from hydrocarbons.
Some are now being recycled, such as a former gas station in Phnom Penh, which has consistently continued the concept of the ecological turnaround: Today, plants are mainly sold instead of fuel.
