Mobil forecourt canopies

Summary

Petrol filling station canopies with striking overlapping parasols designed by Eliot Noyes in the 1960s, constructed in 1979.

Reasons for Designation

The Red Hill circular Mobil canopy units are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons

* Architectural interest: the canopy units are an iconic piece of corporate design and a rare survival in England as well as internationally

* Authorship: Authorship amended to 'the canopies are to the earlier designs of the American modernist architect, Eliot Noyes, a noted designer and a leading figure in post-war commercial design

* Intactness: the canopies are intact despite inevitable changes to other parts of the forecourt through re-branding

History

Commissioned in 1964, industrial designer Eliot Noyes (1910-1977) carried out a re-branding for Mobil Oil Corporation in the USA where poor petrol station design had led to a suggestion of tighter regulation. Mobil's brief, therefore, was for an instantly recognisable and aesthetically pleasing design. The project, named Pegasus, was a total design concept which encompassed shapes, colour schemes, and logos. The first station opened in the USA in 1966.The most striking feature of the re-branding was the innovative re-design of the canopy in the form of individual, over-lapping circular canopy units, possibly influenced by the 1937 design for the service station at Skovshoved, Denmark, by Arne Jacobsen. Noyes developed variations of his design which came into use internationally, varying from single large stand-alone canopies to very small individual units which simply protected the pumps. The blue and red colour-way and logo was the result of Noyes employing Chermayeff and Geismar, the New York-based branding and graphic design firm.
Eliot Noyes (1910-1977). Noyes was an important figure in post-war commercial design, involved with the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he founded the Industrial Design department. He studied architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the 1930s, where he met Le Corbusier, and worked with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer after graduating. Noyes worked for IBM for over 20 years and was responsible for a comprehensive and thoughtful corporate design strategy. His own house in New Canaan, Connecticut (1955) is included on the US National Register as an International Style gem. A monograph on Noyes by Gordon Bruce was published by Phaidon in 2006.

The Mobil canopies at Red Hill, Leicester were constructed in 1979 based on Noyes’s earlier designs

Details

Petrol filling station canopy constructed in 1979 to the 1960s designs of Eliot Noyes (1910-1977). Steel posts and canopy frames, comprising six separate, overlapping, circular units on tall plain posts. Twenty-eight radiating segments create the circular shape, which meet on a ring at the post. Each canopy unit is white and edged by a red and white strip containing the word 'ESSO', which appears to be applied in paint. Beneath each canopy unit, attached to the post, is a pair of rectangular metal boxes presumably containing up-lighters. The pumps beneath the canopy and the adjacent forecourt building are not included in the designation.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 6 July 2023 to amend the description.

Sources

Books and journals
Hitchcock, H R, Architecture of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, (1958)
Russell, T, Fill 'er Up!: The Great American Gas Station, (1952)
Bruce, G, Eliot Noyes, (2006)

End of official list entry

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