The Most Beautiful Gas Station in the World

Nothing beats the classic as they say. I stumbled into this blog on www.architecturalrecord.com. Unfortunately I have to purchase the whole article (from a different website) so I can read it (ha! no way!) good thing the blogger has a few words straight from the article itself.  What really caught my attention is the name MIES VAN DER ROHE as I was reading through the blog. Van Der Rohe - father of modernism (worked with Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius-big names!).

He also designed the first ever glass house, the Farnsworth house.

                                          Believe it or not but this was designed in 1950

Anyway, the most beautiful gas station in the world is the Esso gas station in Quebec and has been designed in the 60's.  

...Needless for me to say anything, thus let me just I quote the writer:

"The thing really is beautiful; it's so unassuming, like a lot of great artworks,"

"It's of a great simplicity, and it's a building that was really thought out. It's not overstated, it's very modest, very functional, and very well designed," said Dinu Bumbaru, the director of Heritage Montreal, who has described it as the "Ritz" of gas stations.

"The filling station was a departure from the garish corporate colours, neon signs and blinding flood lighting of most modern service stations."

That's why I always live by Leonardo Da Vinci's words "Simplicity is the ultimate form of Sophistication"

Sadly, they don't make gasoline stations like these anymore...