Your Maserati’s Next Garage
Feeling at home.
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG DesignDriven.us | YouTube
PARKED smartly in the sweet intersection of automotive design and home architecture, Maserati placed an advertisement recently (10/09) issue of Architectural Digest that was pretty slick.
The Italians sponsored what they called a “Design Driven” competition which asked architectural firms to submit their cutting edge designs for a garage where “a Maserati might feel at home.”
The winning bid for an existing garage was awarded architect Holger Schubert for his rectangular, minimalist, glass-fronted masterpiece set in the arid hills outside of Los Angeles – where else? It’s not clear what Mr. Schubert won other than the spread in AD.
Featuring an entrance that’s reached via a car-length-long, glass-sided bridge, the garage is an open space – like a small modern art gallery – that includes a sitting area with fireplace, bare walls, well placed lighting, a solar paneled roof which provides 100% electricity to the property (good for Cali’s rolling blackouts), and a six-inch hydraulically lifted ramp that, “allows the car to roll out without starting the ignition.”
Delicious. But, one thought: you’ve got to wonder what kind of car actually lives there.
It’d be sweet if the poetry of the ad followed reality, but my money’s on a silver Boxster.
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[Linked: DesignDriven.us]
About the Author: Gunnar Heinrich is publisher of Automobiles De Luxe online and is executive producer of the Automobiles De Luxe Television series on PBS member station CPTV.
