Parking Garages or Just A House of Cars?

The National Building Museum in Washington, DC newest exhibit, House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage, examines the issue of parking, specifically parking cars in an urban landscape and parking garages.

Since cars first drove on city streets, parking has been an issue.

So must parking garages be ugly nondescript concrete eyesores, or as exampled in the exhibit, can architects design them to have some personality and actually improve the city’s appeal and add to the urban landscape?

Growing up in Chicago, parking was an always an issue downtown and with a little research, I discovered the city has a few notable parking firsts.

I always loved the famous Marina City high-rise complex located along the Chicago River. The towers were notable not only for their unique design, but also the way it incorporated an exposed spiral parking ramp into the bottom 19 floors of each building, each with close to 900 parking spaces for tenants and guests.

Chicago is also the home to the earliest know multi-story parking garage. It was erected as part of the LaSalle Hotel in the city’s West Loop area.  Opened in 1918, the 5-story garage was the first of its kind, and as the host city of the 1933 World’s Fair, the Windy City also boasted the World’s Largest Parking Terminal, a 24,000 car parking facility.  So large, it spanned ten city blocks and included a beauty and barber shop, auto servicing center and even a drug store.

A few garages across the country have also included labor and time saving equipment, from single-person step-on elevators to quickly shuttle park parkers from the ground floor to parking floors, to robotics that automatically move cars.  Here in Washington, DC, one of the few fully automated garages is operated at the Summit Grand Parc apartments (910 15th St. NW.)

But parking structures, like all buildings, is ever-evolving.  Architects are adapting more stylish design with sustainable city planning, LEED-certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,) and use environmentally sustainable techniques.  Some designers even add a bit of color, such as the Adobe Row garage in downtown Tucson.

Whether you call it a parking ramp, parking deck, or parking garage, see the old and new, the drab and the whimsical, the utilitarian and the elegant all at House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage.

House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage
National Building Museum
401 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20001 (map it)
202-272-2448

Dates and Times – Through July 11, 2010.  Hours:  Monday – Saturday – 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Sunday – 11-5.

Tours – Free 45-minute docent-led tours are offered daily at 2:00 p.m.

Admission – Admission is free.  A $5.00 per person donation is suggested.

Nearest Metro Subway Station – Judiciary Square – Red line. The station is across the street from the Building Museum.  Or use the DC Circulator bus.

Parking – Limited metered street parking or paid garage parking near the Verizon Center at 6th and H Streets, NW is available.

Images – Marina City – Wikipedia, others Flickr – Reston Town Center garage, Tucson’s Adobe Row parking garage