Frank Lloyd Wright's Gas Station Finally Gets Built

From the Oct. 3rd Chicago Tribune.

Over his 70-year career, architect Frank Lloyd Wright only designed one gas station, and now, 80 years after he drew it up, it as about to become reality.

Wright had the early idea that America was going to need lots of gas stations as car usage increased and he came up with an idea for a network of standardized filling stations.

The Buffalo Transportation Pierce Arrow Museum in New York is building one with above ground tanks and a pitched copper roof, exactly as the architect envisioned. The plans were recently discovered among letters sent between Wright and Buffalo businessman Darwin Martin. Architect Patrick Mahoney has been hired to build the $15million project.

And, the structure, when completed in June, will be open year-round since it will be inside the museum in a huge atrium. Motorists couldn't have filled up at the station anyway because modern-day building codes would never have allowed overhead fuel storage tanks in a working station.

Buffalo had a close connection to Wright as three of the architect's most lucrative clients were there. All were executives in the Latkin Company, an early mail-order business. Wright built the Larkin administration building and Martin's sprawling home.

More than 400 of Wright's structures still stand.

Quite an impressive looking structure according to an artist's rendering of the finished station.

Something I'll Definitely Check Out the Next Time I'm in the Area. --RoadDog