1930 – Clock-face models

History

The nature of the visible pump obliged it to a certain monumentality: the vessel had to be placed above because the gasoline flowed by force of gravity to the vehicle, and it had to have a large capacity so as to not render the transaction too slow.

The designers, in tending to the esthetic aspect of these giants, had emphasized their massive structure, effectively offering them as technological totems.

Some years had to pass before they were liberated from this mindset: the first “clock-face” volumetric pumps are still rather tall and imposing.

Then the designers began to exploit the new freedoms offered by the new technology (and perhaps the warehouses had finally been emptied of the older models).

Without the huge vessel, the necessity of great height disappeared (for it was the pressure of the pump that delivered the gasoline) and the pumps became smaller, more compact, yet at the same time more carefully detailed.

This was the great era of styling, in which the reigning Art Deco style was stretched and rendered American by the genius of designers who applied it to every object, from pencil sharpener to skyscraper.

Parallel lines, aerodynamic modelling, geometric decorations, immaculate finishes, and vivid colors found their way also to the gasoline pump. With most of their mechanisms consigned to the interior, and even the exterior gauges and pistol nozzle incorporated into the formal logic of the object, the gas pumps became (like so many other industrial products) pure expressions of the sensibility of their time.