Olympia Garage

Olympia Garage, 1935-1937, built to the designs of Joseph Emberton.

This is a cantilevered, reinforced-concrete garage with buff brick elevations and steel-framed bands of wired windows. Built between 1935 and 1937, it stands five floors high with a split-level, ten-deck arrangement.

The garage occupies a narrow plot to the north-west side of the Olympia site. Its long principal elevation faces Maclise Road, with the east end fronting Olympia Way and the west end facing Beaconsfield Terrace Road. The north side of the ground level (the podium) is entirely taken up by access routes and the former petrol station, the arrangement of which is still evident. The main parking areas are connected by curved end ramps and central fan-shaped ramps which work together to provide a tandem parking system, as originally designed. Stair towers are positioned in the centre of the garage and at both ends. The main set is positioned on the south-east side, accessed via the entrance hall, with two passenger lifts also serving this tower. The basement is now principally used for storage, with a pump room and some wash rooms to the west side. The upper level of the garage is accessible only via stairs, having never been intended to provide parking space. The rear portion of the garage fronts onto the service yard, with some store rooms and offices beneath the cantilevered structure and a service lift to the basement. The workshop block abuts the rear elevation of the garage further west, with the stair tower on this side wrapping around to front Beaconsfield Terrace Road.

The elevations are faced in buff brickwork laid in stretcher bond. Four extremely long, continuous, horizontal bands of glazing (relating to internal parking floors) run across the main elevation to either side of the recessed petrol-station bay, curving gently around the sides to east and west. The glazing is contained within slender concrete surrounds and is uninterrupted by structural supports, owing to the cantilevered form of construction. The principal Maclise Road elevation is punctuated by a square recess, positioned off-centre (to the east side) and screened from the street by an original low wall and an added metal barrier. The podium of the building, at ground level, is faced in brickwork, now painted white. The podium contains the main entrances for the garage and the petrol station. The garage entrances have original Haskins shutters and retain their cantilevered canopies.

The sides of the building are curved, reflecting the form of the ramps. Beyond each of these, to south-east and south-west, is a stair tower faced in buff English bond brickwork. That to the south-west is lit by small rectangular windows, with an unglazed area to its rear. The main stair tower to the east, which opens off the main entrance hall, creates the building's strongest vertical accent. It contains a full-height bay filled with four superimposed nine-light Crittall windows with central top-hung opening lights. These original windows are separated from one another only by exposed concrete floor beams. A third stair tower occupies the central part of the rear of the building. Porthole windows filled with louvres on its west side correspond to extractor fans (which survive on each floor but do not function). Three small 'haystack' roof lanterns with wired glass admit light over each of the three stairwells.

The rear, or south, elevation of the garage is largely concealed from public view. Much of the eastern half of this elevation abuts the workshop block. Between the central stair tower (centre) and the offices (east) the upper floors were cantilevered over the yard. This has been partially infilled with later stores and office space. The western half of the rear elevation is brick-faced with four bands of glazing. While the garage has several surviving original Crittall windows, notably on the lower levels, main staircase, and rear elevation, those of the principal glazing bands have been replaced but these closely follow the original glazing pattern, with wired glass and several louvre vents added.

The internal structure is of reinforced concrete with visible shuttering, now painted white. The north side of the podium (or ground level) of the garage was entirely taken up by the access areas and the petrol station, of which the kerbed pump islands and access routes remain. Stores and other small rooms for attendants are tucked around the curved end ramps. To the south-east, the main stair and two passenger lifts (mechanisms modernised) are accessed from the entrance hall. This was refurbished in 1983, but the cream-coloured terrazzo flooring, central column and general configuration survive. The entrance hall has a ramp (originally stairs), which would have led up to the covered way in front of the Minor (Pillar) Hall that connected with the booking hall and footbridge, since demolished. Also set off this entrance hall are lavatories for men and women (north), and a four-room office suite (west). The manager's office survives intact but the partitions defining the other office spaces have been removed. Arranged around the enclosed stair to the west of the ground floor were an office (not accessed), a store and the switch room.

The concrete ramps connecting the parking levels are arranged in a spiral form with central fan-shaped ramps linking the staggered floors, these supplemented by curved end ramps. This enabled flexibility of use, allowing either separate upward and downward routes or, alternatively, dual routes for exiting the garage, and rapid egress from the car park when required. The surfaces of the ramps are ridged to prevent skidding (those of the lower level have, in addition, been pecked), and the sides are protected by kerbs and curved steel rails.

The concrete structure impinges minimally on the parking spaces, with free-standing rounded piers on the south side only. The cantilevered construction allows the window bands to run independent of the structure, to the front and rear. Each floor was fitted with Hoffman sprinklers (valves largely replaced, but some examples in basement may be original). Because the building is glazed – as were all multi-storey parking garages before 1960 – it had to be well ventilated. This was done by providing ducts at ground-floor level and centrifugal fans on the upper levels. The fans survive (one per floor) together with their original louvred oculi vents.

Each of the southern levels has a small, glass-fronted office for an attendant to the east and a store to the west (several with original doors). Additional features were provided on the ground and first floors, including four spaces on the ground level which were designated washing spaces. This is still legible: the area was marked by a low, rounded kerb which partially survives. Substantial gutters separate the bays, and there are two rotating washing apparatus fixed to the ceiling, each with two nozzles. The chauffeurs' room and lavatories were located on the first floor, directly above the management offices (not accessed but the area remains distinct in the plan).

The parking ramps did not descend to the basement, which was used primarily for chair storage for the halls. Directly beneath the petrol station is the enclosure for the six petrol tanks. Beside the central stair and goods lift (the latter serving basement and ground levels only) was a boiler room (not accessed). In the south-east corner of the building, under the main entrance lobby – and connected with the offices by a straight flight of stairs (stair bay not fully accessed, but stair apparently removed) – was a large mess room, a kitchen with a store, and a cloakroom with a store. Fragments of this arrangement survive: the cloakroom with its store and adjoining corridor, and one of the large windows on the south side of the mess room. The west end of the basement contained extensive bathrooms, showers, lavatories, water closets and urinals, and also a pump room. While the pump room survives intact with some original machinery, the bathroom facilities have been extensively reconfigured within the original enclosure, and additional rooms have been created to their south and east.