“Car park was almost full but did eventually find a space - there seemed to be a number of spaces blocked off for works reducing the choice - the spaces avaiable indicators on each floor seemed to be accurate”
“All straightforward and easy to book and to park on the day. Fast track security access is a very much required addition as it would be very expensive as a standalone payment for parking.
Will use again next trip I make.”
“There are two kinds of journeys: the journey in which one goes somewhere, and the more ambitious journey in which one attempts to leave one’s car at Edinburgh Airport Multi-Storey Parking.
I had naïvely assumed that parking was a spatial problem. One has a car. There is a rectangle. The car enters the rectangle. Edinburgh Airport invites us to reconsider this primitive Newtonian model and instead confront parking as a question of ontology.
What does it mean for a car to be “parked”? If a barrier recognises your number plate, has it recognised *you*, or merely a database entry associated with you? If the barrier hesitates, are you still a customer, or have you become an unidentified object obstructing the circulation of capital?
The approach consisted of signs pointing towards other signs, each individually comprehensible but collectively producing the sensation of being slowly absorbed into a system whose complete logic was available only to some unseen administrative intelligence.
Eventually I reached the barrier.
The barrier knew me.
For several seconds we regarded one another.
I imagined a conversation taking place somewhere deep within the airport infrastructure:
IS THIS THE ONE?
YES.
HAS HE PAID?
APPARENTLY.
SHALL WE LET HIM IN?
NOT YET. HE MUST UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP.
Then the barrier rose.
Inside, the Multi-Storey revealed itself: a vast covered cathedral of concrete, painted arrows and stationary automobiles. This, I should emphasise, is genuinely excellent. Scotland possesses weather, and the ability to abandon one’s vehicle beneath several tonnes of reinforced concrete rather than beneath the open sky is not to be underestimated.
I drove upwards through successive levels, each resembling the previous one closely enough to undermine confidence in linear time.
Eventually I found a space.
I parked.
Nothing happened.
After such an elaborate initiation I had expected applause, perhaps a small brass band, or at least an airport employee presenting me with a certificate confirming that I had successfully placed a Volvo between two white lines.
Instead, silence.
I photographed the location, knowing that Future Me would otherwise return several days later insisting, “I distinctly remember it being near a pillar.”
There were many pillars.
This is important.
On returning from my trip, I entered the Multi-Storey once again. At night, or after insufficient sleep, an airport car park acquires a different geometry. Level 3 resembles Level 4. Zone C seems capable of turning into Zone D when unobserved. A particular concrete pillar appears repeatedly, possibly following you.
I began to suspect that the building was not primarily a car park but an experiment in human spatial memory.
Somewhere, researchers were watching.
SUBJECT HAS PASSED THE SAME BMW THREE TIMES.
INTERESTING.
SHOULD WE HELP?
NO. HE TOOK A PHOTOGRAPH OF A PILLAR.
Eventually I found my car.
The emotional force of this reunion was disproportionate. For a brief moment, an ordinary manufactured object became something beloved.
“You waited,” I thought.
The car said nothing.
This is why I trust it.
At the exit, I approached the barrier once more. Would it remember me? Had our earlier encounter meant anything?
A pause.
Then it rose.
No fanfare. No explanation. I was simply released back into Scotland and expected to continue my life as though nothing had happened.
Would I use Edinburgh Airport Multi-Storey Parking again?
Of course.
Not because I fully understand it. Understanding would cheapen the experience.
Somewhere within that covered concrete labyrinth, I suspect another version of myself is still circulating slowly around Level 3, following arrows and believing that the next turn will finally explain everything.
It will not.
But the barrier will rise.
Eventually.
★★★★★
Five stars. The metaphysical uncertainty is considerable, but the car stayed dry.”
