PARKADES
One cannot imagine the “American way of life” without the automobile. On his trips around North America Derek Shapton saw how much the design of the landscape is now attuned to the motor car. Since then his work has primarily dealt with what he calls the “dehumanizing aspects of the automobile.” But his photographs of parking garages also show the contrary beauty of these spaces designed for automobiles. In Las Vegas, the artificial city in the desert that exists only thanks to the auto, the upper storeys of the garages merge perfectly with their surroundings: very hot, open spaces where no person is to be seen. They are asphalt deserts, and at the same time oases of calm in an effervescent gambling city.
