[During the 1930s] ... they put Ming the Merciless in charge of designing California gas stations. Favoring the architecture of hi...s native Mongo, he cruised up and down the coast erecting raygun emplacements in white stucco. Lots of them featured superfluous central towers ringed with those strange radiator flanges that were a signature motif of the style, and made them look as though they might generate potent bursts of raw technological enthusiasm, if you could only find the switch to turn them on.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »