Concrete does not pretend
The multi-storey car park behind the high street is the most honest building in town. A short defence of a building nobody likes.
Everyone hates the multi-storey car park behind the high street. It is grey, it smells of rain and engine, and the lift has been “temporarily” out of order since about 2019. People call it brutal as an insult, which is funny, because that is also roughly its job description.
But look at it properly for a minute. Every floor is exactly what it says it is. The ramps are where the cars go up. The columns are where the weight comes down. Nothing has been painted to look like brick or clad to look like glass. When it rains you can see exactly where the water runs, in long dark stripes down the edge of each slab, like the building is keeping a diary.
The new flats across the road have a different material on every floor, as if three architects were in a hurry and nobody told them about each other. In ten years they will look tired. The car park already looks tired, and it will look tired in exactly the same way in fifty years. There is something restful in that.
I go up to the top deck sometimes, around six, when it is mostly empty. You can see the hill and the spire and a long way west. Nobody else goes up there for the view. That is fine. It is not that kind of building. It does not pretend.