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Rendering di progetto e, nella pagina a fianco, i percorsi suggeriti dalla disposizione degli schermi antivento. A project rendering and, opposite page, the pathways reflecting the same layout of the windscreens.
uring the 1960s, Roy Lichtenstein defined gasoline pumps as “commercial monuments, altars to the wealth of consumption.” He envisioned a future increasingly populated by hypertrophic “monstrosities,” hyperrealistic cathedrals dedicated to glorifying multinational oil and gas companies. Forty years later, Samyn et Associés is proposing a total reversal of this architectural trend. The underlying concept focuses on a refined linguistic understatement expressed through the use of unusual materials. Although these materials are traditionally reserved for industrial construction applications, they are versatile enough to be used in many other types of construction without losing their identity. The identity-to-form relationship is currently a knot located at the center of considerable reflection and evaluation, both in design and in theoretical arenas. In the case of highly communicative architectural structures, like the service station, – where the originality of figurative imprinting creates consensus – one can understand how the winning design concept could actually outline fashion trends of the future. It is also important to highlight that, in addition to immuring itself in the real landscape, everything pertaining to the automobile world is also immersed in an ocean of increasingly complex media attention. Reflection and research on the future of the pro-
ject and on the architectural profession cannot possibly avoid the simple fact that the development of computer science increasingly tends to favor an architecture “splayed” into the immateriality of cyberspace. Therefore form, in its threedimensional composite meaning, is decreasingly central to the average architect’s thinking process. The identity-to-form relationship, for example, has by now become the object of reflection on new meaning directions. This is also due to the fact that the architect himself is losing centrality in the project. Today, he shares design responsibility with new creative figures like the symbol maker, the graphic designer and, occasionally, even the scriptwriter, the director and the set designer – professionals capable of transforming architecture into a factory of dreams. The new service stations, like the one designed for the town of Houten, Netherlands, by Samyn et Associés, are the result of client research to develop a new look for a system that is by now obsolete and incapable of communicating new company strategies. The service station is, in fact, a terminal element of great iconic value. It serves as a means of publicity and also holds socio-cultural implications relative to the world of transportation. The increased sensitivity to environmental themes in their broadest sense, including problems of environmental impact, is fundamental today to creating positive feelings toward the overall image of an oil company. In this case, the transparent metal screens surrounding the gas station guarantee maximum integration into both agricultural and urban surroundings. The sinuous walls that encase the Houten service station lighten the whole and create a sense of three-dimensional interior space. They also serve as guided pathways that suggest functional sequences related to filling the gas tank, automobile inspections and rest area activities. Therefore, the very dynamics inherent in the image of the automobile have inspired this enveloping, fluid form – a form capable of suggesting orientation and means of entry into the complex. The double row of screens also functions as a windshield. Finally, the continuous neon blue line running along the edge of the screens signals, with suggestive effect, the presence of the station even during nighttime hours.