The influence of motor vehicles in the architecture of Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo

Abstract

Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates (KRJDA) was a pioneering architecture firm responsible for the introduction into North American architecture of variables resulting from the mass use of private cars. The firm designed buildings to be seen by speeding highway traffic, they studied different options to minimize the impact of vehicle parking in the administration buildings in the suburbs and even modified customs and elements deeply entrenched in architecture such as access and entry adapting it to the possibility of accessing them by car instead of on foot. This article analyses key elements of this work within those three scopes of action: on a territorial scale, in terms of typological innovation and the calling into question of entrances as architectural elements. These examples with their unique innovative solutions reflect how these architects understood that vehicles provided a new sense of the everyday to society, influencing how architecture was seen, used and approached.