Bristol Car Parks
Built 1950s onwards
Designed by various architects
Buildings are most in danger of demolition a generation after they were built. Some deserve to be. They are unimaginatively designed or poorly built. But too often the default is to knock everything down without appreciating that some should be kept.
But car parks? Why do we want to keep temples to the motor car? Disrupters of our cities. Polluters of the earth.
Well, it’s a reminder that once cars were the future. They gave people the promise of the open road. Of independence and flexibility.
Until everyone got one and the roads became congested and the air polluted. Cities were cut apart and reconstructed to accommodate underpasses, bypasses and overpasses.
This series is a paean to a time when multi-story car parks went up as living standards rose. When car ownership gave the masses freedom to go where they wanted. A time of optimism and possibilities.
It was prompted by a recent application to replace the Rupert St Car Park in Bristol with a 21 storey accommodation block. This isn’t any old car park thrown up in the 60s. It was the first multi-story car park in Bristol and the first to feature one continuous half a mile spiral parking ramp in the UK.
All photos are of car parks located in Bristol in the south-west of England.
