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Architecture
 New York and the LaGuardia airport beyond the East River (WS, 2014) Since the early twenties, airports have grown from small grass expanses to the size of a town, with up to 50,000 employees or more (researched together with architect Oswald W. Grube). The old round building at London Gatwick is considered the first modern terminal. Monuments of the past were also the terminal buildings New York La Guardia, Berlin Tempelhof, San Francisco and many other airport buildings. In the age of the jet airliner, airports had to be adapted to planes which land at 270km/h or 170mph and need all of two miles to roll with a load of 300 passengers or more. Runways with a length of 4km or 13,000ft where added around an existing central area, excluding their simultaneous use. Criss-crossing runways, almost a standard in the past, create the risk of a fatal crash with innumerable victims, transferring the responsibility to the traffic controllers. In many cases even parallel runways are positioned too close together, not permitting simultaneous landings. And on many airports some runways have a length of less than 3km, raising the risk of a crash. New terminals were erected, separated from the old ones. At New York JFK, every big airline has built its own terminal, thus making it rather unpopular as a hub. Another principle, the “mobile lounges” of Washington Dulles, found hardly an imitator. Third generation airports with long piers, like Frankfurt, became standard, though they have long internal ways. A modern feature to connect units is the rail “people mover”. Atlanta Hartsfield and Denver International, with several parallel concourses linked by this way, are prominent examples. Tehran International Airport, planned in 1975 for the Shah by American architects Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, was designed with five modules, interconnected by a proposed suburban railway. At Madrid Barajas, Terminal 4 and satellite T4S are connected by a people mover beneath the runway. Decentralized modular “drive-to-your-gate” terminals, such as Munich 1, proved advantageous only for the few passengers coming by taxi. A circular layout, suitable for midtown-situated Berlin Tegel, is considered too definitive. Paris Charles de Gaulle has known all variants: In the area between the runways initially the round fortress-like terminal CDG1, designed by Paul Andreu, has been built as the first of six planned separate terminals. CDG2 was changed to a modular design. As it proved inefficient for the hub function, the next buildings for Air France became more centralized, with extensions by piers. The Hong Kong International Terminal 1, Munich’s perfect Star Alliance Terminal 2, Shanghai Pudong T.1 and the new T.2 were designed with a central hall, much more suitable also for connections with mass transport systems.  Male airport on Hulule island, the runway built in the sea, Emirates B.777 in 2012 (WS) As space is becoming more and more limited, some airports had to be situated “offshore”: Honolulu built a runway on a coral reef, Hong Kong International or Chek Lap Kok blasted flat an island, Macau International was erected offshore Taipa Island, and Male on the Maldives has an airport on extended Hulule island. Osaka Kansai created an artificial island, almost like an aircraft carrier. Seoul Incheon International Airport has been built on reclaimed land between two islands close to Korea’s capital Seoul, connected by the Incheon Grand Central Bridge, praised as one of the ‘Wonders in the Construction World’. Some terminals are friendly to visitors, with observation lounges or terraces. Amsterdam, Munich 2, Zurich, Vienna, Rio International, Sydney and the main airports of Tokyo are among the attractive examples. Some other airports, looking like shelters, barricaded against terrorists or tourists, may be a symbol of troubled countries.
Highlights of Architecture Airports became symbols of modern architecture, whereas the Soviet Union’s airport buildings for decades had been dominated by the bourgeois Stalin style, then abandoned. Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont (the old building), planned by M. M. Roberto and completed in 1944, showed Le Corbusier’s early modern influence (nevertheless it harmonizes with the new futuristic glassed concourse). The modern Chicago O’ Hare by C. F. Murphy represented the purity of the Mies van der Rohe style. Cool Scandinavian architecture was shown with the Copenhagen airport building by Vilhelm Lauritzen. Other examples of classical modern architecture were the first new buildings at New York International, now JFK, by Skidmore, Owings, Merrill – SOM. The New York TWA Flight Center of 1962 and the Washington Dulles terminal of 1962, both keen concepts of Eero Saarinen, were sensational and quite different. Among the masterpieces of contemporary architecture are also London Stansted and Hong Kong International Terminal 1 by Norman Foster, or Kuala Lumpur by Kisho Kurokawa. Foster’s famous Hong Kong Terminal 1 was built as a gigantic Y-shaped concourse with a subterranean people-mover, while neighboring Terminal 2 is a bus-connected check-in center. The Y-shaped scheme of concourses has become almost a standard. Norman Foster, an airplane enthusiast and amateur pilot, designed also the Queen Alia airport of Jordan. And for planning Mexico’s envisaged airport at Ecatepec, Norman Foster was chosen as the leading architect.
On many airports single buildings have become landmarks, so the first terminal at Rome Leonardo da Vinci by Pier Luigi Nervi, the Washington National terminal by Cesar Pelli, the United Airlines terminal at Chicago by Murphy/ Jahn, Osaka Kansai’s terminal building by Renzo Piano, the Airport Center at Munich and the new Cologne terminal, both by Helmut Jahn, and the terminal buildings at Stuttgart and Hamburg by Gerkan, Marg & Partner. Meinhart von Gerkan has designed also Berlin Hbf, Germany’s futuristic railway station, the airport Berlin-Tegel and the Berlin-Brandenburg airport building. Highlights are the new terminal at Dusseldorf by JSK architects, Zurich’s “Airside Center” by PGF team, the new International terminal at San Francisco by SOM, and other ones. The Haj Terminal in Jeddah by Gordon Bunshaft of SOM became well-known because of its tensile fabric roof. For Denver International the architects Fentress, Bradborn & Associates did choose the same principle. At Seoul Incheon International the first terminal is encircling an Integrated Transportation Centre, a futuristic design by Terry Farrell & Partners. At Munich, the Airport Center by Helmut Jahn dominates the Terminal 1 of Busso von Busse and Terminal 2 of architects Koch & Partner – “open skies” with different styles (Daniel Libeskind demonstrated it with his Ground Zero master plan and he explained it to the author as his guiding principle). Moscow Domodedovo, the futuristic concourses at Dubai International, Abu Dhabi’s T3 for Etihad and Montevideo MVD by Rafael Vinoly are new eyecatchers. The still more futuristic concourses of Shenzhen Baoan International Terminal 3 by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas are another sensation. At Singapore Changi, the Terminal 3 was built in a rectangular shape with a tropical garden behind the glass façade, realized by Hugh Dutton. A futuristic new terminal, known as ‘Project Jewel’, is to “house one of the largest indoor collections of plants in Singapore (…). Designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie (…), Jewel is scheduled for completion at the end of 2018” (so reported by 2Go, July 2015).
Also buildings outside the airport can represent the spirit of aviation, for example Lyon airport’s railway station by Santiago Calatrava, who designed also the revolutionary Reggio Emilia railway station and the station in South Manhattan. A surprise is the futuristic aviation museum at Belgrade. The landmark of Los Angeles International has become the Theme Building of 1961 by architect Paul Williams. Some smaller airports at remote destinations, such as Denpasar Bali, Banjul in Gambia, the Punta Cana Terminal in the Dominican Republic, the “rural” building at Siem Reap in Cambodia or the terminal at Yangon, looking like a holy golden shrine, are showing that every culture can have its own architecture.
Without doubt, the highlights are the new hubs. Madrid Barajas Terminal T4 and its reflected image T4S with its light steel architecture, designed by Richard Rogers together with Estudio Lamela, are representing the beauty of modern architecture. Mainly the Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport by Helmut Jahn, who has studied in Munich, is fascinating the author. Shanghai Pudong 2 by Norman Foster and Guangzhou Baiyun are other brilliant examples. Norman Foster designed the new Beijing Terminal 3 in the symbolic shape of a gigantic wing with immense concourses, connected by people movers. The next sensation became Beijing Daxing International Airport, designed by star-architect lady Zaha Hadid. The starfish-like single-terminal design allows shortest was to the airplanes. The ultimate development is represented by “Aerotropolis” centers, at Denver being planned to cover an area of 33,000 hectares, copied already by other cities. The Air City around Seoul Incheon International Airport became intended for 100,000 inhabitants or more.
Not only in busy airport terminals, a room for quiet devotion is some sort of release. The book ‘Viele Religionen – ein Raum?’ (by Beinhauer-Kohler, Roth, Schwarz-Boenneke) is dealing with the question of one chapel for all the religions. An example is the ‘House for one God’, designed by Gerkan, Marg and Partner for the Berlin Brandenburg airport. Already in the 1960s architect Richard Senta Gall together with the author had planned to place a little multi-religious temple in a designed township. For the writer Blaise Cendrars a century ago, the railway stations were “the most beautiful churches of the world.” Today – it’s the airport?  Bangkok Suvarnabhumi by Helmut Jahn, and Thai A330 (WS, 2013)  Beijing Daxing International by Zaha Hadid (via Wikipedia/ creativecommons.org)
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