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So here's the history I was able to sort of dig up:
On June 18, 1969, along a busy motor road connecting the major cities of Helsinki and Tampere, Gulf Oil opened with great fanfare "Maailman Ensimmäisen Kokomuovisen Huoltoasema" - the world's first completely plastic Service Station.
Lempäälä, the tiny village home of the gas station, has now been passed by as a newer and bigger highway was built a few miles to the East. The little gas station has since fallen into decay - three of the four overhang roofs are now gone or obstructed and much of the plastic has been reclad in brute marine steel.
In hindsight, it should be remembered that by the mid 1970s, the Oil Crisis which had tripled gasoline prices made the manufacture of large scale plastic fabrications such as this building financially unfeasible. The material also could not withstand the extremes of the harsh Finnish climate.
Of the original building, only the uniquely shaped glass panes and the large circular plastic door handles remain. That, and the two lonely images hung in a shabby corner inside the aging coffee area, each poor copies from original advertisements of a long ago era when plastic was the hope for the future.
Ironic, then, that Finland's largest shopping mall would be built in this remote area in 2006 - Idea Park.