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Behold, the Parking Garage

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Parking Garage

It’s sometimes hard to know ahead of time what is going to catch someone’s fancy. Take parking garages (please!).

In December we announced a lecture to be held Jan. 15 by architect Shannon Sanders McDonald about parking garages and their effects on urban planning, sponsored by the Library’s Science, Technology and Business Division. The topic sparked not one, but two articles in the Washington Post, along with an overflow-capacity crowd.

In some ways, I suppose it makes sense. Parking garages are ubiquitous, and they figure prominently in many of our cultural touchstones. Think about all of those shadowy meetings between Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein; recent popular films; or Seinfeld and company’s arduous odyssey to find Kramer’s car hidden among the others. One wonders if George Costanza’s alter-ego architect, Art Vandelay, would have designed a less-confusing garage.

The Library’s webcast featuring Shannon Sanders McDonald has now been posted, so you can see what all the fuss was about for yourself.

(Image: 1932 architectural drawing of a parking garage at 10th and G streets NW, Washington, DC, from the Library’s Prints and Photographs Online Catalog)

Comments (5)

  1. I’m sorry I missed the lecture, but I’ve marked your blog for future reading. I was just recommending some urban architecture/how we engage with cities books to a blogging friend. I know she would have liked this lecture, as well.

  2. You want to be alone, to spend some time getting to know your own inner tendencies, great visit old carpark.

  3. These webcasts are wonderful resources! But…Realplayer? What on earth were you guys thinking?

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