226 Garages and Service Stations

An enchanting photographic celebration of Britain's ubiquitous and idiosyncratic car garages

You might use a local garage to change a tire or replace your spark plugs, but when was the last time you pulled over and took a good look at the building itself? In the spirit of Ed Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), British photographer Philip Butler (born 1980) has done just that. Over six years, he traveled the length and breadth of Britain photographing these diverse, eccentric and idiosyncratic buildings.
As motoring became popular in the early 1900s, the need for mechanical expertise to service, repair, refuel and sell vehicles soared―and the "garage" was born. From the Mock Tudor fad of the 1920s via the Streamline Moderne of the 1930s to the simple modernist rationalism of postwar Britain, each era has produced a distinct automotive architecture. A diverse array of structures―churches, cinemas, railway arches, fire stations, shops, factories―all proved versatile enough to find second lives as garages. As the era of the combustion engine draws to a close, Butler's enchanting photographs document the charm and personality of these survivors of the gasoline age.