Frank Lloyd Wright invented the garage when he moved the automobile out of the stable into a room of its own. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (allegedly) started Apple Computer in a garage. Suburban men turned garages into man caves to escape from family life. Nirvana and No Doubt played their first chords as garage bands. What began as an architectural construct became a cultural construct. In this provocative history and deconstruction of an American icon, Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela use the garage as a lens through which to view the advent of suburbia, the myth of the perfect family, and the degradation of the American dream.
The stories of what happened in these garages became self-fulfilling prophecies the more they were repeated. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage that now bears a plaque: The Birthplace of Silicon Valley. Google followed suit, dreamed up in a Menlo Park garage a few decades later. Also conceived in a garage: the toy company Mattel, creator of Barbie, the postwar, posthuman representation of American women. Garages became guest rooms, game rooms, home gyms, wine cellars, and secret bondage lairs, a no-commute destination for makers and DIYers—surfboard designers, ski makers, pet keepers, flannel-wearing musicians, weed-growing nuns. The garage was an aboveground underground, offering both a safe space for withdrawal and a stage for participation—opportunities for isolation or empowerment.
The book was published by MIT Press in 2019 and translated into Russian by Strelka Press in 2020
PRAISE:
"A terrific, important book that both venerates and de-mythologizes the most hidden of all architectural spaces: the garage."
Brett Steele, Dean, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture
"Refreshingly unpretentious [and] narratively nimble."
Art in America
"This is a vigorous, thought-provoking book that, after decades of urban boosterism, rightly draws our attention back to the suburbs."
Times Higher Education
"Unadorned and unheated, a garage might seem like a utilitarian place. But in the analysis of Erlanger, an artist, and Ortega, an architect, the garage is a central space of 20th-century America, where modernism and suburban values collide with unexpected power."
Atlas Obscura
"Garage is an unusual book for an unusual time in history… Erlanger and Govela elevate the humble architectural garage into a metaphor for how far we have strayed from what we thought we were so close to until so recently: objectivity, truth, authenticity and historical accuracy. It is my hope that Garage inspires future authors to open up and produce new histories of subjects long thought to be closed cases: a new history of the kitchen, the bedroom, the backyard, and perhaps even newer histories of the common garage."
Archinect
"No one truly needs a domestic garage to park a car; space is available, if not readily, on city streets. So why do garages exist? The reason may have nothing to do with parking. In their recent book, Garage, Olivia Erlanger, an artist, and Luis Ortega Govela, an architect, coin a term, 'garageification,' which describes a strange excrescence, initially unrelated to the central functions of the home, acquiring a life of its own and beginning to blend previously separate realms."
The New Yorker
"As a model of historically informed cultural studies, Garage warns us to be wary of romanticizing this one-of-a-kind space, even as it underscores why we are so tempted to do just that."
PopMatters
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The Beverly Estate is a property built in 1926 The estate was designed by architect Gordon Kaufmann and was the residence of actress Marion Davies and her partner, William Randolph Hearst. The mansion is influenced by multiple architectural styles. It predominantly showcases the Mediterranean Revival style. There is a Spanish colonial facade. The exterior has French-style gardens, fountains, and statues. Grecian columns are along the exterior with large terraces outside the home. The landscaping was designed by Paul Thiene.
Adapted from artist Olivia Erlanger and architect Luis Ortega Govela's 2019 book Garage (MIT Press), this documentary explores the history of the garage, from its invention by Frank Lloyd Wright to its transformation into an incubator for subcultures and tech entrepreneurship. Filmed on location in Merced, California, the film considers the evolution of this architectural turned cultural construct, exploring how the garage has come to serve as guest room, game room, home gym, wine cellar, and secret bondage lair. This provocative deconstruction employs the garage as a lens through which to view the advent of suburbia, the myth of the perfect family, and the degradation of the American dream.
The project proposes to turn a detached 1930's garage with an eighties extension into a Wellness Centre for guests. The reconversion integrates both Roman and Turkish programs into the building.
Historical relocation of Craig Ellwood's Case Study House 18. The house originally built in 1956 was bought in 2020 and the new owner had plans of demolishing the home that had been extensively renovated in the eighties in a Hollywood Regency Style. The studio salvaged the remaining structural and architectural elements in an archeological process to relocate and reconstruct the historical home. The project is ongoing.
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The design and spatial direction for Bleach LA, the hair salon and store, is based around the principle of creating a social experience for the patrons. The project focused on the transformation of an existing store front into a space that answers to the contemporary needs of a hair salon. There is a dialogue between the store and the salon that is choreographed with the use of a ramp.
Hillside Home in Glasell Park
An exhibition at 83 Pitt Street in New York. The shell of a house is installed inside a flooded gallery. The balloon frame, known as such for both its ability to fly away and to burst, is a historical building technology from the 19th century. The construction method developed during an era of expansion with the aim of being light, portable and most importantly parasitic. Intended to be built by two generations in unison, this frame consisting of nailed studs, went on to propagate and colonise the American suburb.
Educational mini series directed by Luis Ortega Govela and Olivia Erlanger that distills the book into a three part short series.
The project is a housing model located in Silicon Valley that takes the typological knowledge of the garage as a way to re-address suburbia and its non-nuclear family subjects.
Set design for I LOVE YOU a film by Brooke Candy.
A secret history of the garage as a space of creativity, from its invention by Frank Lloyd Wright to its use by start-ups and garage bands.
Addition of an existing hillside home to accommodate a new program for an art collector.
