The history of the parking garage likely ranks among the last subjects that would come to many people's minds as a good subject for a museum exhibition. The parking garage, after all, has always been a structure shaped by utilitarian considerations related to the mundane realm of motor vehicle storage. It may be welcome as a convenience, but it is seldom thought about in any other terms. Work of this genre seldom figures in the accomplishments of leading architects and it has even more rarely attracted the attention of historians.

True to form, the National Building Museum has defied conventional wisdom and shown the spotlight on the lowly parking garage. House of Cars is the latest in a series of unorthodox but superbly crafted exhibitions that the museum has developed, including ones devoted to sheet metal, concrete, offices, fences, and the domestic environment created by the do-it-yourself culture. Like its...

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