Returning to the
car, after hours, we enter a split-level lacuna of chilly calm at the heart of
the city. Outside, bass bins pound and
weekenders stagger and shriek across a windswept plain, but all is dormant
here. The last few silent vehicles await
the return of dirty stop-outs or the next-day casualties in hung-over daylight;
stacked; compartmentalised within ruled lines.
This place is an
archetype of Modernism. An edifice of a
specific kind, unlike any other. A machine
for machines to dwell in. A monument to
an unsustainable automotive future; prime real estate given over to vacancy and
abandonment. Despite it’s supreme
blankness, buildings just like this haunt the imagination of T.V. and the
movies. The dodgy deal and furtive
rendezvous. Echoing gun-play and tight-cornered
pursuit. Dangerous strangers lurking in
shadows.
To wander these
decks and ramps is to become lost in an eternal Escher-space of near-identical
levels, each serving as a mezzanine to the last. Functional geometry and something vaguely nautical in white walls and a prevailing horizontality. Red and green industrial floor coatings
shimmering under diseased fluorescent light.
Sans serif signage. Direction arrows
and linear demarcation. Everything
labeled, as though the architect’s plans were translated, verbatim, down to the
final legend. A ceiling of hollow
modules like 1970s T.V. spaceship décor; the occasional one becoming a basin of
light. Steel barriers and the electronic
eyes of 24 hour security. Replicated, regulated
space and costed time. Hourly rental of so many cubic metres of dead air.
The outside leaks
slowly into this strangest variety of interior space. Weather dies and becomes meaningless in
here. Nothing goes on happening. No one comes.
The quivering of fluorescent tubes is felt rather than seen. Impassive, subtly humming ticket machines
await payment in return for release. A
distant squeal of tyres signals the surreptitious escape of an unseen vehicle
below. We start the car and begin our own angular, spiraling descent to the automatic barrier.
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| All Photos: Assembly Rooms Car Park, Derby, November 2013 |
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