Measure it out seven times, fill it up once: gas stations have become museum exhibits

The Shchusev Museum of Architecture responded to the latest news in an original way — it opened the exhibition "Gas station. The architecture of gas stations". The project demonstrates a century—old history - from a utilitarian booth to a futuristic art object. Izvestia was the first to study the exposition of 300 unique artifacts and found out why gasoline was sold in pharmacies, what legends the old gas station on Volkhonka preserves, and how familiar gas stations turned into engineering monuments.

How gas stations appeared in Russia

The joint project of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture and the Moscow Museum of Transport was built as a journey through the hundred-year history of Russian gas stations. Hundreds of exhibits are collected on three floors of the Ruina wing — archival documents, drawings, models, photographs, paintings and rare equipment that allow us to trace how not only gas stations have changed, but also ideas about their place in urban space.

"We spent about a year in archives and libraries to debunk established myths and once again make sure that the historical cycle is progressively spiraling," said Olga Shurygina, curator of the exhibition. — At first glance, the interest in gas stations is not obvious. It seems that this is a very marginal object, which is strange to study. The architecture of gas stations is not included in textbooks, which include, for example, garages. But it fits into the great history of our country's architecture.

The project has seven chronological sections. The route starts on the ground floor in the "Beginning of the Automobile Era" area, where fuel pumps and rare speakers from the 1910s from American manufacturers S. F. Bowser are presented. & Company and Gilbert & Barker.

— Gasoline appeared earlier than the car, and it was sold in pharmacies as a technical liquid for degreasing, — said the curator. — Then there were bigger cans, into which the pump was inserted. Then they decided that the car should come to gasoline, and not gasoline to it. And so in 1926, 100 years ago, the idea arose to build the first car refueling pumps in Moscow. The development of architectural thought has begun.

Petrol stations began to appear on Kalanchevskaya, Lyalina, Manezhnaya, and Teatralnaya squares. Of the old Soviet gas stations, only the gas station on Volkhonka remains today. Her story is still shrouded in legends and myths. For example, it is said that this is part of the giant complex of the Palace of Soviets, which was supposed to be built on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was blown up in 1931. Or that Alexey Dushkin, one of the main masters of Stalinist architecture, designed the gas station. But this is not the case. The gas station was built almost immediately after the war, in 1946, according to the project of Alexander Zaitsev. Now it is the last operating station that refuels the FSO fleet.

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The exhibition featured more than 30 original prints of classics of the twentieth century.

The history of gas stations on the pages of Izvestia and in the cinema

The second floor is dedicated to the evolution of architectural thought — from the first projects of the 1920s to the typical stations of the post-war period. Here you can learn how the utilitarian operator's booth gradually turned into a sophisticated Soviet avant-garde and futuristic postmodern. The stands feature samples of the rarest station graphics from 1926-1928, and drawings by designer Mikhail Minkus.

The exhibition stands carefully preserve newspaper chronicles of the end of the last century. In the summer of 1999, the headline "Fuel crisis of confidence" appeared on the front page of Izvestia. The reason was the rejection by the State Duma of a bill on a new tax on gas stations, which, according to forecasts, threatened to increase the price of gasoline. A month later, the publication released another high—profile article, The Leaky Tank of Russia, where the reason for the rapid rise in fuel prices was the lack of a market for petroleum products. These archival clippings are striking with their topicality, blurring the line between the museum's past and reality.

The history of gas stations is reflected in photography. Among the exhibits is a picture of Lily Brick, Vladimir Mayakovsky's muse, next to a Renault car and holding a refueling hose.

The exhibition explores the history of gas stations and cinema. The legendary comedy "The Queen of the Gas Station" (1962) with Nadezhda Rumyantseva not only showed the everyday work of a gas station attendant, but also turned the station itself into a full-fledged hero of the narrative. Firefighters were forbidden to shoot at a real point of operation — the film equipment of those years sparked and did not comply with safety regulations. As a result, a fake replica was built next to the real speakers. For the filming of the film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia," Eldar Ryazanov also made a replica of a gas station, which he then spectacularly blew up in the frame. And now, thanks to the cinema, gas stations have turned from a simple technical facility into a symbol of the era, which has become part of popular culture.

A separate section is devoted to Soviet childhood. The curators have assembled a collection of toys from the 1950s and 1990s - rare miniature replicas of fuel trucks, toy filling stations and tiny fuel dispensers.

The organizers hope that the exhibition will help to take a fresh look at gas stations as part of the architectural heritage of the 20th century. The exhibition will run until October 25, 2026.