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October 12, 2004
The Airport
"What was once the starting point for journeys that promised romance, excitement and the unknown is now, as Alastair Gordon aptly describes it, a place of "jaded realism, apathy, and paranoia." Paris tells the tale. The Le Bourget, where Charles Lindbergh ended his epic flight in 1927 -- "The grounds were neatly landscaped, with gravel walkways and lines of pollarded trees; it all looked more like a corner of the Tuilleries Gardens than an airport" -- has given way to Charles de Gaulle, a chilly, chaotic, almost unimaginably hideous mausoleum that a friend of mine calls, perhaps flatteringly, a "Third World airport."
As Gordon says: "The airport is at once a place, a system, a cultural artifact that brings us face-to-face with the advantages as well as the frustrations of modernity. The sprawling, hybrid nature of the subject challenges easy assumptions. Its history has been a recurrent cycle of anticipation and disappointment, success and failure, innovation and obsolescence."
From a review of Naked Airport, in the Washington Post.
I really couldn't agree more. The arrival and departure portions of travel, nowadays, are a skittish, onerous, and anxious experience for most people. Especially since airline hijackings have become the de-facto image of terror.
Yet arrival and departure should be a monumental experience, filled with noble grandiosity. Airports, in someways, should be more like the great train stations of the eastern seaboard. New York City's Grand Central Terminal , Washinton DC's Union Station, and Philadelphia's 30th St. Station. Not to mention the tragically abandoned, Buffalo Central Terminal.
On a not-so-recent trip to DC, I stepped off Amtrak's wonderfully first-class ("hi-speed") Acela train, into the dignified Union Station. It offered a grand, rejuvenative, and chimerical welcome. Moving out the heavy doors into a direct view of the Capitol, I hopped in a cab, and found myself in haughty style amongst the building of downtown DC. It was the welcome I had desired, and needed, a first impression that correctly reflected the place I had arrived in. Surely, being a resident of New York, I had alot less positive to say about my point of departure, Penn Station - which is stuffed underneath the uninspired slab we call Madison Square Garden, like an after thought. Although I am excited to note that the USPS recently gave up its 24 hour neo-classical Post Office (designed by McKim, Mead and White) on 8th Ave, in order to once again give eminence to arrival in Manhattan by rail. It will be named Moynihan Station. Yes, is it any wonder the Landmark Preservation Act started as a result of the destruction of the original Penn Station? Thank you Jane Jacobs.
Somehow we know that our Arrival and Departure points should be lofty, romantic, mystifying, and at least, somehow representative of the place we are coming into. They should be as amazing as the act of travel is, and can be. Yet nowadays we come into our cities and towns byway of sprawl, and suburban/exurban airports. We arrive in a no-nothing landscape, where inspiration and reflection give way to scrabbled efficiency and banality. A feeling of Because We Have To. A simple exchange of services. These structures don't speak to the art of arriving, to the art of departing. To the needs of the traveler.
It was sad to see the recent art show at the old TWA terminal, Terminal 5, at JFK was closed do to some coked-out hipsters. It surely would have continued to open the discourse on these ideas.
Santiago Calatrava has made his name by designing structures of connection & reception. His beautiful Lyon Airport Station, for one. 
Surely his bridges and train stations have shown his intelligence in recognizing these great qualities in the art of travel. So it was great to see him assigned to design the rail terminal at the WTC site. Hopefully David Childs & Larry Silverstein won't be able to insert their sickness into this one. But more importantly I hope we can continue to see investment in creating great spaces of arrival and departure, whether for rail, air, or car.
Posted by jmarston at October 12, 2004 11:31 AM
Comments
Awesome Post Dave.
I agree with you. On a personal level, of the airports around the country that I've traveled, the lack of asthetics almost NEVER translates into increased travel effiency.
With the exception of a few newly constructed terminals (like Denver), Most airports are not only uninteresting, but also are plagued with constant expansive construction. The constructions first goal is always the accommdoation of increased traffic, but there is a remarkable disregard for any congruence betweeen the existing airport and the expansion. "lets just slap another wing onto the north end of the airport, that outta do it" seems to be on the mind of the planners.
Never been out east, but from your description and the reputation of these places, it seems like a cool place to visit.
(as a side note, I heard a rumor that the limestone in grand central station is made from the Salem Limestone, which is found in Indiana...its pretty famous in and of itself from a geologists perspective. its about 340 million years old.)
Posted by: Joe at October 12, 2004 06:38 PM