Alberto Rodríguez Arias Publishes Groundbreaking Study on Spanish Service Stations as Architectural Laboratories

"La estación de servicios. Laboratorio de arquitectura," authored by Alberto Rodríguez Arias, marks an important addition to the historiography of Spanish architecture in the 20th century. This book emphasizes service stations as vital venues for design innovation between 1927 and 1967, stemming from his doctoral studies. It documents the journey from Casto Fernández-Shaw Iturralde's Porto Pi gas station in 1927 to the decline of this typology in the 1960s. Rodríguez Arias contends that these buildings spurred architectural creativity tied to European avant-gardes and modernity. Furthermore, the publication acts as a vital catalog of vanishing structures, calling for their acknowledgment and preservation. Rodríguez Arias, born in Lugo in 1989, completed his doctorate in July 2021 and has experience in Spain, Slovenia, and Sweden.