#car fortress

Baynard House, City of London, 2025

A building with 4 floors of continuous thin-framed aluminium windows, as well as vertical ribbed concrete between each floor. At the bottom, a series of metal horizontal vents and an entrance to an underground carpark.

The building was designed by William Holford incorporating a separation of pedestrians from streets, with a first-floor adjoining walkway along Queen Victoria Street that connects to Blackfriars station.
Baynard House, London – Wikipedia

Streets in the sky! Definitely one to go back to. It is, however, a nightmare to photograph, owing to the coach parking out front.

Chorlton Street Car Park, Manchester, 2025

A multistorey car park above a gay pub. There are 4 storeys at the front, with a ramp up to 3 storeys at the back. There's a spiral entrance ramp mostly out of shot to the left. The columns are NCP yellow.

Buoyed by the consulate renewing my passport in 5 minutes flat, and with the sun out, I set off to take some photos today… until the heavens opened 😣

Multistorey car fortress, Shoreditch, London, 2025

Various road traffic lights in the foreground, followed by a spring-green tree, then right in the centre of the image a narrow, graffitied multistorey carpark, with various glass London skyscrapers in the background.

Close up shot of graffitied multistorey carpark, taken at ground level. It fills almost the whole picture, with only a little bit of a skyscraper and the dark blue spring afternoon sky in the background.

Side of multistorey carpark, taken from ground level. The side of the concrete is made out of concrete panels, and the top part of it is graffitied. Below that, a rusty sign which reads: CAR PARK P_TRO_ - Meyers Bros Parking System. The rest of the image features the graffitied tiers and stairway of the car park, with the dark blue late afternoon sky in the background.

Courtesy of this Flickr comment thread, which incredibly includes the niece of one of the Meyers Bros referenced by the sign, the Meyers Bros Parking System was ramp-less, instead operated by lifts which brought the cars up and down the storeys of the car park.

Stockport Exchange Station Car Park, 2024

A multi-level parking garage at night is brightly lit, with rows of parked cars visible through open sides. Streetlights illuminate the foreground, where a person walks near several parked vehicles. The surrounding area appears quiet and clean.

Not modernist, but I like how this one turned out.

Sun-dappled car fortress in the Northern Quarter, Manchester, 2025

A red brick multi-storey car park stands on a street corner under a clear blue sky. Several yellow P parking signs are mounted on the building. A person walks past the entrance, and sunlight casts strong shadows on the walls.

A brick building with three floors, each featuring rectangular, open window spaces without glass. The lower level has barred windows and graffiti on the right. The façade is sunlit with shadows, and the roof has black lamps. Sky above is clear and blue.

This doesn’t qualify as modernist, or even really as a delight, but it made me laugh how something so thoroughly modern and utilitarian masquerades itself amongst the Northern Quarter’s Victorian mills and factories with the use of red brick. A concept long forgotten in Manchester’s development-mania, of course, with everything now built out of steel, concrete, glass, and cladding.