Temple Street Garage
1 Temple St, New Haven, CT, 06510 (note: on Google maps and on other articles detailing the garage’s information, the garage is listed as 1 Temple St, but on the Tax Assessor Database, the address is listed as 21 Temple St.)
The garage was originally built as part of the Church Street Redevelopment Project which was meant to rebuild the urban and commercial core of the city, increasing the tax base and bringing shoppers downtown rather than to the suburbs of New Haven. From 1948 to 1954, New Haven’s retail sales downtown decreased by five percent, while the surrounding area had a 31 percent increase (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Business, 1954). By rehabilitating the retail district downtown, the project was supposed to restore commercial success to the city. While the Project initially intended to provide decent housing, its goal quickly became focused solely on addressing New Haven’s commercial decline.
When Temple Street Garage was being constructed, the buildings in the adjacent blocks were not yet determined. About this, Rudolph said, “They should have been designed to dominate the parking garage” (Cook and Klotz, 1975); he wanted the structure’s surroundings to be at the same massive scale and feel – the garage was not meant to be out of place. While this goal may have been achieved back when the mall was still present, the rest of the surrounding buildings are in a mix of styles of which none are nearly as striking and bold as the garage, making its presence very obvious and contrasting to its surroundings.
Rudolph believed that “the two most potent influences in the form of twentieth century cities are sheer volume and the American preoccupation with mechanized transportation of all kinds,” and he wanted to unify the two with his garage, attempting to stray from traditional building types while also thinking about both the scale of the automobile and a scale satisfactory for the volume-obsessed American (Rudolph and Moholy-Nagy, 1970). Not only was he able to incorporate this sought-after scale, but he used it on a structure that could actually make use of it.
Rudolph wanted, rather than imitating what he believed most parking garages were like – “merely skeletal structures which didn’t get any walls. They are just office building structures with the glass left out” – chose to make a building that was very obviously a garage, one that “said it dealt with cars and movement”(Cook and Klotz, 1975). He was also attempting to elevate the building beyond merely the functional: it was supposed to represent what it was through the fluidity of the curves and texture made by wood-forming.
As mentioned in the previous section, the garage was bordered by two department stores on the east. These, however, went out of business in later years and remained vacant until 2012 when the lot was replaced by Gateway, a community college. The garage was located next to these stores so that shoppers could go directly into a department store without setting foot anywhere else, including anywhere in downtown New Haven.
The fluidity and coherence of its form were not only meant to indicate what the building was for but also to create a seamless transition from parking space to commercial space. The high and wide arches on the ground floor are inviting, creating open space where the consumer is drawn to and welcomed into the stores integrated into the structure. The restaurants and other commercial spaces described in the previous section coupled with the structural forms become an arcade, imitating the original arcades in Europe, which were semi-enclosed areas meant solely for commercial purposes.
There has been no change in ownership or tenancy of the building over time, as the garage was originally built for the city, by the city, and it remains owned by the city of New Haven. The only changes, as aforementioned, have been in the commercial spaces on the ground floor, but as far as I could tell from my research, they have always been different restaurants, shops, and other service stores, since that is what the spaces were originally meant for.
When Temple Street Garage was being constructed, the buildings in the adjacent blocks were not yet determined. About this, Rudolph said, “They should have been designed to dominate the parking garage” (Cook and Klotz, 1975); he wanted the structure’s surroundings to be at the same massive scale and feel – the garage was not meant to be out of place. While this goal may have been achieved back when the mall was still present, the rest of the surrounding buildings are in a mix of styles of which none are nearly as striking and bold as the garage, making its presence very obvious and contrasting to its surroundings.
Rudolph believed that “the two most potent influences in the form of twentieth century cities are sheer volume and the American preoccupation with mechanized transportation of all kinds,” and he wanted to unify the two with his garage, attempting to stray from traditional building types while also thinking about both the scale of the automobile and a scale satisfactory for the volume-obsessed American (Rudolph and Moholy-Nagy, 1970). Not only was he able to incorporate this sought-after scale, but he used it on a structure that could actually make use of it.
Rudolph wanted, rather than imitating what he believed most parking garages were like – “merely skeletal structures which didn’t get any walls. They are just office building structures with the glass left out” – chose to make a building that was very obviously a garage, one that “said it dealt with cars and movement”(Cook and Klotz, 1975). He was also attempting to elevate the building beyond merely the functional: it was supposed to represent what it was through the fluidity of the curves and texture made by wood-forming.
As mentioned in the previous section, the garage was bordered by two department stores on the east. These, however, went out of business in later years and remained vacant until 2012 when the lot was replaced by Gateway, a community college. The garage was located next to these stores so that shoppers could go directly into a department store without setting foot anywhere else, including anywhere in downtown New Haven.
The fluidity and coherence of its form were not only meant to indicate what the building was for but also to create a seamless transition from parking space to commercial space. The high and wide arches on the ground floor are inviting, creating open space where the consumer is drawn to and welcomed into the stores integrated into the structure. The restaurants and other commercial spaces described in the previous section coupled with the structural forms become an arcade, imitating the original arcades in Europe, which were semi-enclosed areas meant solely for commercial purposes.
There has been no change in ownership or tenancy of the building over time, as the garage was originally built for the city, by the city, and it remains owned by the city of New Haven. The only changes, as aforementioned, have been in the commercial spaces on the ground floor, but as far as I could tell from my research, they have always been different restaurants, shops, and other service stores, since that is what the spaces were originally meant for.
N/A
Before Temple Street Garage was constructed, the space was occupied by many different buildings. According to the Sandborn maps of 1901 and 1924, the spaces ranged from office and residential buildings to storage facilities and even an opera house (Sanborn maps, 1901; Sanborn maps, 1924).
Note: I joined these two sections (Streetscape and Urban Setting & Social History) together because I feel that a lot of what I researched and discovered overlap in terms of urban setting and social history since the garage’s original surroundings were purposeful and it was part of a whole.
The garage was originally built as part of the Church Street Redevelopment Project which was meant to rebuild the urban and commercial core of the city, increasing the tax base and bringing shoppers downtown rather than to the suburbs of New Haven. From 1948 to 1954, New Haven’s retail sales downtown decreased by five percent, while the surrounding area had a 31 percent increase (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Business, 1954). By rehabilitating the retail district downtown, the project was supposed to restore commercial success to the city. While the Project initially intended to provide decent housing, its goal quickly became focused solely on addressing New Haven’s commercial decline.
When Temple Street Garage was being constructed, the buildings in the adjacent blocks were not yet determined. About this, Rudolph said, “They should have been designed to dominate the parking garage” (Cook and Klotz, 1975); he wanted the structure’s surroundings to be at the same massive scale and feel – the garage was not meant to be out of place. While this goal may have been achieved back when the mall was still present, the rest of the surrounding buildings are in a mix of styles of which none are nearly as striking and bold as the garage, making its presence very obvious and contrasting to its surroundings.
Rudolph believed that “the two most potent influences in the form of twentieth century cities are sheer volume and the American preoccupation with mechanized transportation of all kinds,” and he wanted to unify the two with his garage, attempting to stray from traditional building types while also thinking about both the scale of the automobile and a scale satisfactory for the volume-obsessed American (Rudolph and Moholy-Nagy, 1970). Not only was he able to incorporate this sought-after scale, but he used it on a structure that could actually make use of it.
Rudolph wanted, rather than imitating what he believed most parking garages were like – “merely skeletal structures which didn’t get any walls. They are just office building structures with the glass left out” – chose to make a building that was very obviously a garage, one that “said it dealt with cars and movement”(Cook and Klotz, 1975). He was also attempting to elevate the building beyond merely the functional: it was supposed to represent what it was through the fluidity of the curves and texture made by wood-forming.
As mentioned in the previous section, the garage was bordered by two department stores on the east. These, however, went out of business in later years and remained vacant until 2012 when the lot was replaced by Gateway, a community college. The garage was located next to these stores so that shoppers could go directly into a department store without setting foot anywhere else, including anywhere in downtown New Haven.
The fluidity and coherence of its form were not only meant to indicate what the building was for but also to create a seamless transition from parking space to commercial space. The high and wide arches on the ground floor are inviting, creating open space where the consumer is drawn to and welcomed into the stores integrated into the structure. The restaurants and other commercial spaces described in the previous section coupled with the structural forms become an arcade, imitating the original arcades in Europe, which were semi-enclosed areas meant solely for commercial purposes.
There has been no change in ownership or tenancy of the building over time, as the garage was originally built for the city, by the city, and it remains owned by the city of New Haven. The only changes, as aforementioned, have been in the commercial spaces on the ground floor, but as far as I could tell from my research, they have always been different restaurants, shops, and other service stores, since that is what the spaces were originally meant for.
When Temple Street Garage was being constructed, the buildings in the adjacent blocks were not yet determined. About this, Rudolph said, “They should have been designed to dominate the parking garage” (Cook and Klotz, 1975); he wanted the structure’s surroundings to be at the same massive scale and feel – the garage was not meant to be out of place. While this goal may have been achieved back when the mall was still present, the rest of the surrounding buildings are in a mix of styles of which none are nearly as striking and bold as the garage, making its presence very obvious and contrasting to its surroundings.
Rudolph believed that “the two most potent influences in the form of twentieth century cities are sheer volume and the American preoccupation with mechanized transportation of all kinds,” and he wanted to unify the two with his garage, attempting to stray from traditional building types while also thinking about both the scale of the automobile and a scale satisfactory for the volume-obsessed American (Rudolph and Moholy-Nagy, 1970). Not only was he able to incorporate this sought-after scale, but he used it on a structure that could actually make use of it.
Rudolph wanted, rather than imitating what he believed most parking garages were like – “merely skeletal structures which didn’t get any walls. They are just office building structures with the glass left out” – chose to make a building that was very obviously a garage, one that “said it dealt with cars and movement”(Cook and Klotz, 1975). He was also attempting to elevate the building beyond merely the functional: it was supposed to represent what it was through the fluidity of the curves and texture made by wood-forming.
As mentioned in the previous section, the garage was bordered by two department stores on the east. These, however, went out of business in later years and remained vacant until 2012 when the lot was replaced by Gateway, a community college. The garage was located next to these stores so that shoppers could go directly into a department store without setting foot anywhere else, including anywhere in downtown New Haven.
The fluidity and coherence of its form were not only meant to indicate what the building was for but also to create a seamless transition from parking space to commercial space. The high and wide arches on the ground floor are inviting, creating open space where the consumer is drawn to and welcomed into the stores integrated into the structure. The restaurants and other commercial spaces described in the previous section coupled with the structural forms become an arcade, imitating the original arcades in Europe, which were semi-enclosed areas meant solely for commercial purposes.
There has been no change in ownership or tenancy of the building over time, as the garage was originally built for the city, by the city, and it remains owned by the city of New Haven. The only changes, as aforementioned, have been in the commercial spaces on the ground floor, but as far as I could tell from my research, they have always been different restaurants, shops, and other service stores, since that is what the spaces were originally meant for.
Current Use
Era
1950-1980Architect
Paul Rudolph
Structural Conditions
Street Visibilities
Yes
Threats
None knownExternal Conditions
Dimensions
90,101 ft² (retail area: 13,272 ft²); takes up two city blocks and is half a block wide.
Style
BrutalistNeighborhood
Downtown and Town Green DistrictYear Built
1959
Roof Types
FlatResearcher
Alina Susani
Street Visibilities
Yes
Owner
City of New Haven
Client
City of New Haven, Connecticut and the New Haven Parking Authority. The garage was part of New Haven’s Church Street Redevelopment Project and a crucial part of Mayor Richard C. Lee’s urban renewal program to stimulate the city’s economic growth.
Historic Uses
Details of the curved forms of the south entrance ramp of Temple Street Garage.
Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
The 1901 Sanborn Maps show that at the beginning of the 20th century, the lot which is now Temple Street Garage was occupied partially by the Grand Opera House, a synagogue, various storage places, and some residential buildings. Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut. Sanborn Map Company; Vol. 2, 1901. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn01151_004/.
The texture of Temple Street Garage, formed by 2-inch wood strip forms, represents its similarities with nature, emphasizing the garage’s organic forms. The texture is similar to that of tree bark, shown in the foreground. Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
A close-up of the textural detail of Temple Street Garage, formed by 2-inch wood strip forms.
Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
The 1973 Sanborn Maps are from after the construction of Temple Street Garage, showing the space it still occupies today. They also show that even then, the commercial spaces were occupied by stores under the garage. Sanborn maps of New Haven. Sanborn Map Company, issuing body; Vol. 1, 1973. Map. https://hdl.handle.net/10079/digcoll/548020.
The Brutalist concrete forms of Temple Street Garage in contrast to its surrounding buildings.
Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
Arcade in the north block of Temple Street Garage. On the right are the arched, open forms that make up the garage, and on the left are the various commercial spaces integrated into the structure.
Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
Details of the curved forms of the south entrance ramp and the facade of Temple Street Garage. Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
Passageway, or skywalk, entrance from Temple Street Garage to 40 Temple Street, the Temple Medical Center. The arch form is continued throughout the skywalk.
Photo taken by Alina Susani (Oct 2023)
The 1924 Sanborn Maps show that the empty spaces seen in the 1901 maps have almost all been filled up, mainly with office buildings, some shops, and some residential buildings. Sanborn maps of New Haven. Sanborn Map Company, issuing body; Vol. 1, 1924. Map. https://hdl.handle.net/10079/digcoll/548050.
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