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Wright in Racine
Wright's service station
Posted by:
mhertzberg on
August 21, 2008 at
9:30PM CST
Text and photos (c) Mark Hertzberg
If you tell people who do not know Frank Lloyd Wright’s work inside out that you recently detoured to Cloquet, Minnesota to see a Wright-designed service station, they will invariably ask you to repeat yourself. They are sure that either they misheard you or that you are pulling their leg. Wright thought that gas station designs should be no less appealing than the homes he designed, writes Suzette Lucas in the Summer 2008 Frank Lloyd Wright Quarterly. But, she continues, no oil company was interested in his standardized designs which he pitched as a way to save money, and help build up the brand with distinctive buildings. The gas station Wright designed in the late 1920s and early 1930s for his Utopian Broadacre City project was finally built in Cloquet in 1956-1958, for R.W. Lindholm. He had built a house in for Lindholm in Cloquet in 1952. The service station features a dramatic thirty-foot cantilevered, copper-covered canopy that projects north past the second floor lounge, or waiting room, and the bathrooms that are over the office. The lounge is glass-enclosed on three sides. There are skylights in the garage. Building codes precluded Wright from adding the overhead gas lines featured in his original concept. Wright had wanted motorists to be able to drive without having to navigate around conventional fuel pumps. Wright’s design was built around an existing filling station and garage. Lindholm sold Phillips 66 gasoline. The 60’ pylon atop the roof originally said “Phillips” where Wright’s name is now painted. And “66” was at the base of the tower, where we now see his “F” and “L” initials. Today the station is a Spur dealership. It is a full-service gas station. Gas is cheaper across the street, but it would be shoddy to buy gas at a self-service station, and then drive over to walk around and take pictures. There is a dry cleaner on the south side of the building. These pictures were regrettably shot at midday. The lighting and architecture would be more dramatic at dusk, mixing ambient light with the lights of the building. The car in the service bay is a 1955 Studebaker Champion (which evolved from one of Raymond Loewy's wonderful designs for Studebaker). Wright’s 1927 design for a service station is being built in Buffalo. It will be a full-scale building, but it will not be a working gas station. Links: History: http://www.cloquet.com/index.cfm?PID=118 A rich collection of historic photos: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/08/06/gasstationslideshow/ Paul Ringstrom’s photos of the 50th anniversary celebration on August 7: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45747476@N00/sets/72157606674836927/ The Buffalo project:htto://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/arts/design/06wrig.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&oref=slogin
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