The great gas station renovation

In 1963, the journey along Route 66 was punctuated by neon signs: Shell, Mobil, Texaco, Standard… The rise of the motorcar had been insatiable since the ’20s, and with it, gas stations had become ubiquitous. Driving to his parents’ house in Oklahoma, pop artist Ed Ruscha photographed each stop along the way. The resulting book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, elevated the prefabricated roadside structures into cultural icons. He wasn’t the only artist to see the art in gas stations:…