Rikenography

A new photo in the Garage series. this one comes from an Atlanta Hospital Parking Garage.

I’ve been working more lately on the parking garage series and I think its starting to develop. The more I walk around these things I am increasingly amused and appalled by the amount of concrete dedicated to the Fuck You School of Architecture.

I also can’t help but think how pervasive the need find a home for your car is when you go anywhere. Very often the substance of your night/day may be directed by the inability to park, or the need to walk long distances. It’s kind of strange, mostly annoying and sometimes interesting. Here are a couple new samples of what makes them intriguing to me.

After having to go to this place to leave your car, you are commanded, “This Way Only!”

Ho! Ho! We have options here. A chance to feel the benefits of individualism is finally at hand.

Perhaps we are faced with the need to continue up to the dreaded higher levels.

One more from nearby:

Late night Garage:

I’ve tended to show a fascination with parking garages in some of my past work, and to most people it was a weird thing to show interest in. The thing is, I can’t help it, and so I’ve decided to extend it into a sort of ongoing project. Mostly shot at night or on weekends when there are few cars around to ruin the awful architecture that typically defines parking garages and lots, these photos will show my attempts to examine the life and times of the places we store our cars when we are doing other things. Highways and roads are interesting to me too but they are more in our face because we are there with our car when we see them.

When we park out car however, we aren’t there to share the experience – we leave it there to do something else. Many people show affection to their cars and even give them a name but they still leave their automobile in a cluster with relative strangers and hope things will be alright. Setting aside the way Hollywood movies present parking garages as a place for crime or spy meetings, I will try to show how these neglected venues for car socialization can give us insight into how we ourselves think about social interaction and urban planning.

I used to think that these buildings would be skeletons of a wasteful era, when gasoline fueled a blindness to aesthetic taste and practical use of space. If energy scarcity ends the life of the car, I’ve wondered what will happen with these buildings. Electric or hydrogen fueled cars might change this, but nevertheless even if we do turn to electricity to drive us for years to come, it will only enhance the role of the parking garage as a charging station.

Here are some photos from the last few weeks.

A garage in Atlanta next to the State Courthouse – taken two weeks ago.

This one is a night shot from the top of a nearby parking garage. Across the way is another.Another night shot, this time from within a local municipality parking garage.