The car park and the museum
At the beginning of 1931, the Portuguese architect Rogério de Azevedo found himself at a crossroads. The newspaper Comércio do Porto had commissioned him to build a car park next to the newspaper's new headquarters in the historic centre of Porto.
This was obviously good news because Azevedo was also a co-author of the new headquarters, but the gift was a real challenge because the relationship of functions between a newspaper building and a car park could not be more disparate. One needed its office space, offices and machine rooms, while the other was apparently only for storing cars. In addition, the headquarters of a media company is a representative building, an image and an icon. A façade that shows the city the importance of information. On the other hand, a car park...well, it was used to store cars. How would he ensure that one building did not compete with the other? How would he manage to ensure that the façade did not lose its dignity? Yes, he was at a crossroads.
Comércio do Porto. The characteristic neon sign on its façade was recovered in 2021 by Saba, which also organised an event to pay tribute to the legacy of the architect Rogério de Azevedo.
So Rogério de Azevedo decided to get out of the crossroads by doing everything that was supposed to be done. The garage would not be a minor building, it would not duck its head, it would not be boring or mundane. On the contrary, the building would be a masterpiece of modern architecture precisely because it was not burdened by any misunderstood representativeness or image.
Garagem Comércio do Porto. A monument of public interest since 2011, this landmark masterpiece designed by the architect Rogério de Azevedo is a symbol of Porto's modernity. Since 1932, its helicoidal ramp has been witness to the city's automotive history.
In 1932, the Garagem do Comércio de Porto was inaugurated. It was, in fact, a demonstration of absolute freedom and absolute modernity. And a demonstration that the car had indeed arrived to change the city and - cities - forever.
A century has gone by and cars are no longer so well received in urban centres. At least private cars, which are practically condemned to stop driving in historic city centres. And yet, cities will continue to be full of vehicles.
Autonomous and self-driving vehicles, delivery vehicles, car-sharing vehicles, collective vehicles, electric cars, electric motorbikes, electric bikes, scooters and even skateboards. All these vehicles will continue to be in our cities and all these vehicles will need to rest in our cities. In fact, if cities are determined to reduce the number of private cars in their historic city centres, these same private cars will need to rest in other spaces.
In reality, parking space is probably going to be more necessary than ever. Perhaps it is a question of not hiding these spaces but understanding that they also create urban fabric. Moreover, perhaps it is time to start treating wheeled vehicles as the excellent design objects that they are. To paraphrase Indiana Jones: they should be in a museum, so maybe we should stop hiding them and start showing them off.
Marina City. In the heart of downtown Chicago, the towers show off their car parks without any complexes, an iconic image of the city that has appeared in a great number of movies.
Welbeck Street Car Park. Demolished in 2019 despite opposition from many Londoners, this icon of Brutalist architecture was in use for 30 years.
It would not be the first time that architecture has understood that cars can be shown as a central element.
For example, the magnificent Marina City skyscrapers in Chicago showcase their fourteen-storey car park freely to the outside, because when Bertrand Goldberg designed them in 1964, he already knew that it was a fundamental aesthetic capital. That its curved shapes and bright metallic colours were the perfect complement to the bare concrete of the building.
Another very relevant case is the London Welbeck Street car park, built in 1970. It was an architectural landmark, treating its façade as a carefully designed artefact. Of course, the building was in the middle of London's urban layout, just behind Oxford St., so it was already born to be seen. It was born as a proud urban landmark.
But if we have already seen that the car parks of the future are not just going to be car parks, they are going to be distribution hubs, electric vehicle charging platforms, car-sharing relay centres and even bicycle parks, why not think of them as true multidisciplinary architectures? And even buildings to visit and experience?
The JAJA Danish studio has built a fantastic building in Copenhagen's new Nordhavn neighbourhood that defies all conventions of the traditional parking building. It is called Parking House + Konditaget Lüders and, in addition to being a large permeable block of steel that does not cover the vehicles, but rather gives them a glimpse, it is also a children's playground. A great playground placed in that sometimes forgotten part of architecture: the roof. From there, children - and adults - play and jump having the bay of Copenhagen as an unbeatable landscape.
Knowing that European regulations are more restrictive when it comes to permitting shared-use buildings that include car parks, it is the United States, and specifically Miami, that is the city that is most committed to this type of architecture that anticipates the future. JAJA's work in Denmark is a beautiful example of car park architecture, but there are others that are even more sophisticated.
Parking House + Konditaget Lüders. The project by JAJA Architects ApS, built in 2016, challenges the traditional use of the car park.
At the end of 2016, Rem Koolhaas and his studio OMA completed the Faena District car park in Miami.
The building is part of a complex with three other buildings, also designed by the Dutch architect, and intended for use as art galleries. The thing is not that the car park building maintains an aesthetic logic with the other pieces (which it does more or less), but that it is, conceptually, a contemporary museum by itself. The interior cannot be visited unless you have parked there and the cars that are stored there remain hidden except for the large opening that shamelessly displays the motorised mechanisms that lift and pick up the vehicles.
Faena Park. Opened to the public in 2016 in Miami, the façade of this car park exhibits the motorised mechanism that raises and lowers vehicles through its three floors.
1111 Lincoln Road. In the heart of Miami Beach, designed by Herzog & De Meuron, this car park brings together different uses in a structure that reinterprets Tropical Modernism.
But perhaps the most interesting example of a car park-museum is also in Miami: at 1111 Lincoln Road.
Designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & De Meuron, the building is interesting for its architecture and attractive aesthetics, but its hybrid programme also anticipates the predictable future of coexistence with vehicles. Because at 1111 Lincoln Rd. there are not only parked cars, there are also shops, pop-up restaurants and wedding halls (and people having their wedding photos taken) that share space with the cars. There is no separation, no one is embarrassed. Everyone understands, as Rogério de Azevedo did 90 years ago in Porto, that the car park is not something to run away from, but something that is - and has to be - a vital part of our cities.
park and
the museum
A story by Pedro Torrijos
