Slater St Barrow-in-Furness LA14 1RU
Westmorland and Furness Council said Portland Walk car park will close from the start of July.
In a statement the council revealed the rooftop car park will permanently close from July 1 following a review which found said it had ‘very low usage’.
I turned a corner, then another corner and caught sight of a concrete car park ramp.
I thought, I think – therefore, I am going to walk up and down it.
Multi Storey Car Park Rowlandsway Manchester M22 5RG
I’ve lost count of the countless times I have visited countless car parks.
I do have a fondness for ramps – particularly helical ramps, one of my most memorable early modernist encounters, was with Lubetkin’s penguin pool.
The cast concrete taking on a truly sculptural dimension.
There is also the Proustian recollection of a collection of geometry lessons and Helix instruments.
It has all left a lasting impression and I have subsequently taken every opportunity to waddle penguin like up and down several concrete car park ramps.
Here’s the most recent.
Eldon Square Percy Street Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RZ
Well here we are in Newcastle again exploring a car park – last time was the Manors.
We are a walkway and a walk away at Eldon Square – a great big drum of a spiral ramped cylinder.
So well worth a look – by walking the ramp with outside in, and inside out views.
5 St James’s St Nottingham NG1 6EY
This is an appalling car park.
Nottingham should be ashamed of it.
Very expensive, dirty and with rough sleepers lying on each stairs landing.
Felt very unsafe.
Parkopedia
Located in the heart of Nottingham, our parking on St James Street puts you right in the historical centre of this ancient city. Get your picture taken with the legendary Robin Hood Statue, then take a tour of the Castle, Museum and Art Gallery before staying in the stylish boutique accommodation of St James Hotel.
Under construction.
Lost underpass.
Archive photographs: Nottingham Post
An overwhelming three-part development by John P Osborne & Sons. Phase 1 has a multi-storey car park 1962 above shops; followed by the fifteen-storey Britannic Hotel 1966, elevations by James Roberts.
Elain Harwood
Eschewing the pedestrian entrance, I ascended the ramp – walk like a car!
Weaving between yellow pillars, taking care on the stairs.
Peering out of the hexagons.
Until finally, I reached the upper level.
Made it Ma, top of the world!
I’m on the top of the world lookin’ down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I’ve found, ever since you’ve been around
Your love’s put me at the top of the world
Brims and Co. Limited
Manors Car Park’s distinctive form derives from the constraints of the train line to east which collided with the new Central East Motorway A167 M which dips beneath, shaping the car park between these constraints. The curvature of the concrete decks sweeps uniformally across the site, interrupted only by the circulation ramp. The car park was the first multi-story car park in Newcastle and marked the beginnings of Wilfred Burns car-centric plans for the modernisation of the city through the Central East Motorway Plan – 1963.
Burns plan aimed to increase the economic growth of the city through greater convenience for an emerging car owning populace and even went as far as to incentivised cars travel by offering limited free parking in the city centre.
Manors car park connected and accompanied by an equally dramatic and elongated pedestrian footbridge from Manors Train Station – today Manors Metro, touching the car park for access before swooping under Swan House on Pilgrim Street Roundabout. The bridge takes what feels like the longest imaginable route over the motorway, allowing pedestrians to bypass Northumberland high street and take in the theatrics of the swooping concrete forms and motorway traffic.
In the early 1960s, under the leadership of T Dan Smith and his chief planning officer Wilf Burns, Newcastle city council undertook a comprehensive re-planning of the city centre that, had it been carried out to its full extent, would have led to the construction of underground motorways and a series of raised pedestrian decks running along Northumberland Street in the main shopping zone. The plan was that the new city would encircle the historical core, which would be preserved; meanwhile vast swathes of Georgian housing to the east would be razed. There were also plans for high-rise towers in the centre, only one of which was built.
This tendency in town planning was due in part to the publication of H. Alker Tripp’s book of 1942.
Along with Traffic in Towns an influential report and popular book on urban and transport planning policy published 25 November 1963 for the UK Ministry of Transport by a team headed by the architect, civil engineer and planner Colin Buchanan. The report warned of the potential damage caused by the motor car, while offering ways to mitigate it. It gave planners a set of policy blueprints to deal with its effects on the urban environment, including traffic containment and segregation, which could be balanced against urban redevelopment, new corridor and distribution roads and precincts.
These policies shaped the development of the urban landscape in the UK and some other countries for two or three decades. Unusually for a technical policy report, it was so much in demand that Penguin abridged it and republished it as a book in 1964.
Wikipedia
In a one man war against the segregation of traffic and pedestrian I often walk car parks, ramps and all.
Stockport Asda, Piccadilly Manchester, Merseyway, Heaton Lane, Hull, Red Rock, Grimsby, and Margate.
As a non-driving militant pedestrian I assert my right to go wherever I wish to – within reason.
Okay let’s go.
Here we are again – in a spin, oh what a spin that I’m in.
Up and down the spiral ramp, the eternal allure of the unknown and forbidden, walking the way of the motor car.
I was in town on an overcast day, prior to a Covid jab appointment, what better way to relax and reflect on our current condition, here on this whirling sphere.
A transgressive trip to a twisted world of spiral delights.
Stockport, Hull and London have all been previously explored – here we are now going up the back of the Plaza.
The work of architects Covell-Matthews Partners, further details here at Mainstream Modern.
The car park ramp serviced the Piccadilly, now Mercure Piccadilly Hotel; one of the three main elements of Piccadilly Plaza, along with City Tower and the late lamented Bernard House.
In its day, synonymous with Manchester’s emergent manifestly modern image – scene of Albert Finney’s homecoming, in the film Charlie Bubbles.
And also used, in the then fabulously glamorous Dee Time – host Simon Dee descending the ramp in his ‘E Type’ Jaguar.
Legend has it, that the ramp was the location for an unlikely encounter between architect Louis Kahn and top pop combo The Commodores.
The reception drop off was at first floor level and was accessed from street level by a helical ramp. My father’s dilapidated Renault 4 van gave up just near the top. Extremely embarrassed, my father asked Kahn to move over to the driver’s seat and steer, whilst he attempted to push the van the rest of the way. As he began to push a people carrier pulled up behind and out stepped a group of men who began to help. Soon the van was outside the reception and my father and Kahn thanked the men.
The young female receptionist was very excited: ‘Do you know who just pushed your car up the ramp? The Commodores!’
Hang on to your hats lets take a trip up the helix.
And down again.
NB The Modern Moocher neither advocates nor encourages the pedestrians’ invasion of the motor cars’ private spaces.
Let it be known throughout the land, that it is at heart, a very, very daft and dangerous thing to do.
We recently took a look around Redrock, today we visit the next door neighbour – the car park ramp.
Replacing the old Debenham’s ramp.
Linking the old world of Merseyway with the shiny new NCP.
I don’t drive no car so I have to make do with the ecologically sound and ever so affordable means of pedestrian trespass, proceeding incautiously I recorded my journey into the unknown.
Returning safely to Basecamp I investigated further, circumnavigating the drainage area.
I have to admit that I am over fond of this small sacred space, a modern impenetrable temple of Brutalism. My ambition is to stage an art/music event within, just wait and see/hear if I don’t!
Modern Mooch 