Gate change: Can airport architecture get any better — or worse?
Luis Vidal, the Spanish architect of the very new, very red international terminal at Logan Airport, has an exalted view of airports, and understandably, since he has designed more than 30 of them, from Madrid to Pittsburgh. Far from the grinding and stressful ordeal most travelers associate with air terminals, Vidal believes they can be sensible, soothing places; not just limbo-like waystations but memorable experiences in themselves. “Airports are the cathedrals of the 21st century,” he likes to say.
Well, maybe, if your religion is shopping and your sacrament is one of those Biscoff wafer cookies washed down with a Starbucks skinny latte. Airport terminals have surely evolved since the primitive landing field at Kitty Hawk. But to speak of them in the same breath as, say, Chartres seems a bit grand.
In 1995, the anthropologist Marc Augé coined the term “nonplace” to describe the soulless, bureaucratic, often temporary spaces that humans increasingly occupied, which to him were the scourge of modernity. He derided them — highways, superstores, chain hotels, and, especially, airports — as mere “spaces of circulation, consumption, and communication.” In these familiar, generic, alienating nonplaces, he wrote, “people are always, and never, at home.”
It was not always thus. In 1930, the United Airport in Burbank, Calif., opened amid much fanfare, sporting a handsome Spanish revival terminal. Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York) opened on a former golf course in 1948 and ushered in the romanticized “golden age” of flying. Eero Saarinen’s fluid, avian TWA terminal at the airport — first opened in 1962 and now converted into a chic retro hotel — is perhaps the most famous of the period, but even a Gulf gas station on the property had provenance: It was designed by Edward Durell Stone (architect of New York’s Museum of Modern Art).
Airports of this period were characterized by futuristic, moonshot touches like soaring arches and mirrored ceilings, while maintaining a whiff of elegance. Stewardesses wore white gloves and passengers ate on real china and drank champagne. When airline deregulation arrived in 1978, prices plummeted, flying became far more democratic, and airport architecture focused less on form and more on function. The point now is to move as many people to as many gates as possible through an increasingly complex matrix, shopping and spending all the while. Whatever architectural gestures might have been planned are obscured by wafting perfume samples, electronic billboards, and blaring TVs.
This all became much worse after 9/11, especially in the United States, as security trumped ease or even efficiency and airports erected segregated checkpoints and bottlenecks to exert maximum control. The COVID-19 pandemic only heightened the anxious need for safety and segregation.
Vidal is aiming to change that dynamic with new airport designs that maximize space, natural sunlight, and sustainability. The new international Terminal E building at Logan will feature a photovoltaic roof, which will capture sunlight and convert it into electricity, and a climate-conscious design, though aviation itself, of course, is still a major contributor to global warming.
Society’s regard for the public realm has so diminished that airports are perhaps the last grand civic places anyone is building today. Though they masquerade as communal “third spaces” promising freedom and adventure, they are mostly designed to extract maximum revenue. Many look better from the outside, like Denver International Airport, opened in 1995, which resembles the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains but which has been a costly disaster and fount of bizarre conspiracy theories ever since. Let’s hope Logan’s new Terminal E provides not only a striking red silhouette looming over East Boston but a welcoming, easeful experience on the inside, where the people are.
The irony is rich: Most people travel precisely in order to experience a sense of place, the genius loci that feels rooted and authentic and helps us see the world with new eyes. The airports that facilitate travel, on the other hand, exude a bland commercial sameness designed to tamp down the senses. But Vidal predicts that the airports of the future will slough off their reputations as nonplaces and become integrated into their communities. “Spaces with long, dreary hallways can and must be transformed into illuminated culture centers reflecting a city’s history, values, and geographic strengths,” he has written.
That’s a far bigger challenge than keeping the restrooms clean or ensuring the luggage arrives in one piece. You could almost say it requires divine intervention.