The Parking Garage as the Undocumented Search for Modernism

Although the Auguste Perret Garage of Paris, 1904 is frequently discussed as one of the early architectural expressions of modernism, a compete understanding of the parking garage typology and its role in the development of modernism has been ignored. The study of the evolution of the American parking garage has been the unexpected encounter in the complete understanding of the formation and expression of modern design ideas.The first purpose built parking structure in the United States appeared at the turn of the century. Experimentation with the concepts of modernism in actual built form occurred first within its interior as new spatial breakthroughs. How to resolve the new spatial advances with the most public part of the building, the façade became the challenging issue. This evolving process of defining modernism as related to urbanism or the civic presence is still occurring today within the typology. Looking at how all the factors of architecture merge and diverge in actual built form provides a unique laboratory for understanding and advancing modern design. The parking garage is the key important new building type of the 20th century. It has formed the crucial spatial constructs of modern architecture and creatively struggled with modernisms’ most complex of issues still evolving and struggling to achieve its goal of civic integration of man and machine, now beginning to appear in theoretical and built work.

Volume Editors
David Covo & Gabriel Mérigo Basurto

ISBN
0-935502-57-2