An Answer Before the Question

These are the ground and typical floor plans for the Casa Mila in Barcelona, a multi-story apartment building begun by Antoni Gaudi in 1906. That's before Mr. Ford's novel machine caught on. On the upper floors (to the right) the large holes in the center serve as pretty typical light / air access to the apartments (corridors in this case) that surround them. On the ground floor (left) they are connected to the street by monumental archways, and serve as vehicular circulation: carriage turn-around and drop-off. But that's not what's interesting about this building.

The interesting thing is that those ground floor courts connect to ramps that curve down into the basement level. The design is such that horse and rig descend to stables below. To wit: this is an urban apartment with integrated underground parking - before the car.

So what happened? Here (and also at several other Gaudi projects) is a high-density solution to the urban vehicle problem before it was supposed to have happened. It makes one re-examine the whole timeline of the city. I've just spent a couple of weeks reading several of the obligitory books blaming the innovation of the automobile for everything short of the end of the world (a book not to read: Asphalt Nation by Kay,) and here you have thinking on the same issue prior even to the issue. Curious.

Gaudi, certainly, was ahead of his time in many areas. However, could it be that we've been framing the whole cars vs. people problem (or at least its history) in the totally wrong way? Could it be that its not a technology problem at all, but an affluence problem?