Scholars Mind

Parking Lots as Architecture

People usually park their cars and then dash on to their destination as quickly as they can; they may not give the parking lot itself a second glance. Liminal spaces are easy to overlook on your way to somewhere else. But some parking lots are self-conscious architectural masterpieces. Read about the Temple Street Parking Garage in New Haven—and then look into these other lots below. Should more parking lots be built with this much architectural flourish, or should they be as invisible as possible?

In Detroit, a lavish 1926 movie palace — 4,000 seats, ten-foot crystal chandeliers — now parks cars beneath its ornate ceiling. Some spaces we hurry through hide a masterpiece.

Key concepts

The Overlooked Liminal Space
The parking lot is pure transit — somewhere you pass through to get somewhere else, beneath notice; that's exactly why it's a liminal space almost no one looks at twice.

+ 2 more concepts inside

Every work — at a glance

  • Temple Street Parking Garage — Paul Rudolph

    A New Haven garage deliberately designed to express cars and movement — sculptural, sweeping concrete inspired by highways, built so 'there is no doubt that this is a parking garage,' the opposite of the usual blank skeleton.

+ 5 more works explained inside

What to know

  1. 01
    Should garages get architectural flourish, or vanish? These lots stake out the fight. Temple Street loudly declares 'this is a parking garage' while most garages disappear into blank boxes — so each project argues whether infrastructure should announce itself or hide.

+ 1 more insight inside

Across subjects

There is an economic reason most garages are eyesores. A space earns the same fee in a plain box or a landmark, so every dollar of flourish is pure cost.

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

The parking lot is the purest of the places we cross without seeing. Should parking be lavished with architecture, or made invisible? One side says flourish: these structures are unavoidable, so making them beautiful enriches the city. The other says make them disappear — glamorizing car storage celebrates the car-dependence others question.

Practice — a sample

ARTDetroit's ornate 1926 Michigan Theater, now a parking garage, is the clearest example of —

  • A Faithful restoration
  • B New construction
  • C Adaptive reuse
  • D Honest architecture
  • E Urban sprawl

Sign in to answer and see why each option is right or wrong.

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