I was going to buy it for my friends who are expecting a baby in the next couple of weeks but this is what it looks like now...
There’s something that has always appealed to me about that Fisher Price car park/garage. I won’t say that as a toddler I appreciated its architectural design (‘Hmmm, Mother dear women, wouldn’t you say that the supporting columns of this Fisher Price Garage are somewhat reminiscent of the Doric style of Ancient Greece?’) but looking at it now I can genuinely see something of Le Corbusier in it, the pioneer of modern high design...
It makes sense though, Le Corbusier being an urban planner/industrialist architect. You can’t get much more industrial than a car park.
Here are a few more of my favourite Le Corbusier designs...
Thankfully his ‘Plan Voisin’ was never fully adopted in Paris. ‘In it, he proposed to bulldoze most of central Paris north of the Seine, and replace it with his sixty-story cruciform towers… placed in an orthogonal street grid and park-like green space’
Here's the mammoth Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle which is now all boarded up and ready for demolition...
This is the notorious Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago...
Although I think that a lot of the criticism of high-rise housing is justified I expect that a lot of it comes from people who haven't ever even stepped foot inside a block of flats. I sometimes get the impression that it’s not realized or appreciated that there is often a greater sense of community in council housing than in an average suburban street, where people might say hello to their immediate neighbors but may never of even spoken to people who live only a few doors down. I can only speak about my personal experiences in London but I think that lack of community is not necessarily a problem of housing but rather a problem with people, regardless of class or creed.
Anyway, that Fisher Price Car park/garage is too good to throw away. My sister has set aside a little area of the garden to grow herbs in, I’m going to try and convince her to incorporate the garage into it. I think it will look good in a few years time with all the herbs growing in and around it. Like this Le Corbusier building in India…
Doubt she’ll have any of it though.