The Airport as Sculptor of a National Identity
December 29, 2009
With all the focus on getting from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible, it’s easy to forget how culturally significant – and not just functional – an airport is. As your eyes dart from departure board to boarding pass to terminal signs, it’s only natural to overlook the symbolism of your surroundings, and the underlying messages that the surrounding architecture is communicating.
The frustrations and inevitable systemic failures we encounter at an airport distract us from the importance of airports as cultural ambassadors. Not only do these massive transportation hubs expose us to travelers from around the world, they often offer us our first impressions of a city or country upon arrival.
In order to help clue us in on these messages that we so blithely miss, writer Alain De Botton did what many of us would find unbearable – he voluntarily spent one week in an airport.
As a writer-in-residence in London’s Heathrow International Airport, De Botton observed the interactions of travelers and workers, the emotions surrounding air travel, and the expressive nature of the airport architecture to put into question just how the communicative power of a constructed space functions. His findings are presented in his book, aptly titled A Week at the Airport.
In his book, one insight that De Botton offers on airport architecture – and on architecture in general - is the way it can project a dream: “[Heathrow Airport] was proposing a new idea of Britain, a country that would be reconciled to technology, that would no longer be in thrall to its past, that would be democratic, tolerant, intelligent, playful and lacking in spite or irony.” As it turns, airports aren’t just places where planes are meant to land and take off, they are spaces where thoughts and ideas are likewise encouraged to take flight. They are, ideally, modern day visions of Utopia.
De Botton continues: “[Heathrow] was applying the prerogative of all ambitious architecture to create rather than merely reflect an identity. It hope [sic] to use the hour or so when passengers were within its space — objectively, to have their passports stamped and to recover their luggage — to define what the United Kingdom might one day become, rather than what it too often is.”
In other words, Heathrow, and by extension many other airports strives to present more technological advancement – with its self check-in computer kiosks and high definition departure boards – more modern aesthetics, more spacious design, and more playfulness than the surrounding city. According to De Botton, the airport possesses many of the qualities that the city aspires to have years from now.
Air travel wasn’t always so inclined toward idealism. The first airports were minimalist - little more than open ground and hangars. But, as air travel surged by mid-century, so did the desire for more inspiring architecture. The TWA Terminal at New York’s John Kennedy Airport is an early example of more fantastical airport design. Built in 1962, the terminal has a whimsical, space-aged aesthetic typical of the Googie architectural movement, with an overall appearance that resembles a grounded alien craft. Ultimately, though, the terminal proved too small to contain a subsequent boom in civilian air travel.
There is a definite resurgence in the trend among airports around the globe and of all sizes for ambitious architecture. The whimsy and vibrant colors of the undulating roof at Madrid Barajas‘ new terminal and the cavernous, sparkling ceiling of Kuala Lumpur’s international airport imply that these places celebrate creativity and imagination (not to mention that they’re prosperous enough to fund such over-the-top projects). On the other hand, the sheer size of Beijing’s nearly two-mile long Terminal 3 (pictured above) seems a reminder of China’s own size and rising power. Whatever messages there are to be found in the architecture, airports these days are striving to outdo each other.
In part, these buildings are also odes to the romanticism that lingers around human flight. No matter how mundane the process of flying has grown, the force of a plane taking off is enough to accelerate even the most jaded traveler’s heartbeat.
Architecture in general, in addition to the many forms of technology infused into it, now more than ever exhibits an affinity for idealism. Modern public spaces are ones that are technologically advanced, efficient, environmentally conscious, and offer egalitarian access and treatment. Consider Google’s unofficial mantra of “Don’t be evil,” or Nintendo’s popular Wii video game console, whose demographic is simply and boldly identified as “everyone.” As technology and architecture hone in on a more customizable, sustainable, and democratic future. Places like airports strive to offer us fleeting glimpses of this future. They can embody the dreams of a nation, a city, or just a single architect. One can only hope that these dreams don’t remain so for long.
Source: “A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary, by Alain de Botton” cityofsound.com;
“Flights of fancy: The world’s best airport architecture” guardian.co.uk.
Photo courtesy of:
Feng Li/Getty Images.
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