Focus 580; Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the Worlds Most Revolutionary Structure

In this hour we'll be talking with architecture critic Alister Gordon about something that he says is a kind of a place that brings us face to face with both the advantages and the frustrations of modern life. It's history has been a recurrent cycle of both innovation and obsolescence and the thing that we're talking about this morning is the airport. He's written a new book that looks at the history of airport design which is entitled naked airport A Cultural History of the world's most revolutionary structure. It's published by Metropolitan Books. It shows how the airport has combined architecture and urbanism to change many things including the way we think about time and distance and style. It also had a great impact on how cities are built and how we do business. If you're interested in reading that you should head out to the bookstore or the library and you can look for the book of course here this morning. We'd be very happy to have your questions and comments. Our number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 just a bit more about our guest Alister Gordon is a contributing

editor to house and garden and well magazines. He writes regularly for The New York Times. His articles have also been published in Architectural Digest condé Nast Traveller Vanity Fair Town and Country. The New York Observer is the author of several other books including weekend utopia modern living in the Hamptons and he's joining us this morning by telephone. Mr. Gordon thanks for thanks for talking with us today. Good morning how are you. Good thanks. We appreciate you giving us some of your time. You begin the book with something of a personal experience a personal memory about going out when you were young to see someone off at the airport and I believe this is the airport that is now Kennedy and was at the time Idlewild I think it was just in transition from Idlewild to Kent I'm a fire remember my father still called that idle well but it was had been renamed Kennedy because it was this was the year of the New York World's Fair 64 and I was taking my cousin with

my dad who was flying back when my cousin was flying back to London. And we went to the World's Fair for a brief visit and it seemed you know frankly a little bit shabby You know compared to our expectations. And then we went over Dick Kennedy with all its fabulous new terminal structures and that really seemed like the real thing that was the future. And I just fell madly in love with the TV a terminal by U.S.A. and felt this was you know everything about the modern world that I that I loved and wanted to be a part of and you know very it was about three years later I flew out of there myself and I was sort of dismayed to see how dysfunctional it had become and you know in only three or four years that that's the sort of the point of the story that rather. A short period of time we went from the idea that the feeling that you had this was a magical space to something that was was dirty and grimy and sort of falling apart and no

longer had that kind of feeling and were only as you say I think at the first part of the story as takes place in 1964 and the next was 19 70 or at least I think that's when you talk about going going back to the flying anyway which of course in a coarse way doesn't even exist anymore. Yeah. How is it that over that very short period of time we could see such a change going from this idea that the airport was a magical kind of place. And it expressed a lot of our feelings of optimism and the way we thought about what the future was and all of that in such a short period of time for that to that image to tarnish so much. Well that's that was sort of the idea of the book because I like you like everybody you know who travels a lot and had those sort of meltdown moments in airports and wondered you know how could it possibly get so bad how could something that had you know the sort of utopian promise become such a nightmare. And usually we just turn to you know we face that in the modern world all the time you know

whether it's on a highway or a shopping mall or you know in more drastic ways when we face terrorism or whatever but to to to try to you know kind of deconstruct or analyze how how the idea you know these utopian ideals of the modern world of what aviation was going to bring us versus the realities of keeping up with technology in aviation keeps you know kept throwing this new technology at urban planners and designers and architects to try to meet each to meet that challenge you know. That's what that's why that was sort of this constant process of innovation but slipping almost immediately into a state of obsolescence. I think that's changed now that slowdown because we've had I mean we've had 740 you know Boeing jumbo 747 for since 1970 now so that you know those changes did slow down for a while but there was that period where I think the airport in aviation represented. Maybe as much as Madison and you know the forefront of

where the average citizen confronted the new world you know the realities of new technology. And for me it was you know it became sort of a metaphor for coming to terms with the difficulty of being a being a modern person in the modern world and not reacting and you know our instinct is to just react against it and hate everything that was built after sort of 1020. But it's a very very interesting place at the airport because there is such an overlap of all these different things you know you have transportation communication architecture urban planning you know now heavy surveillance and security issues. And it's so it's kind of a fascinating laboratory for a cultural historian to look at. Well I think it's in a very real way. Again one might ask the question well why would you focus on something like an airport. But I think that it is very. True and you've demonstrated all along that the airport and airport design really has is a reflection maybe always has been a reflection of what was going on in our society

both what what our aspirations were and both what our fears were and are right. That's absolutely true and it's if you look at the early period when you know only very wealthy people and sort of movie stars and oil barons could afford to fly it was it was like a theatrical event. Tyr airport's terminal design was really about creating a fantasy of you know a romance of flight of what it was to fly to be in the same space that people like Charles Lindbergh were inhabiting. And that that worked fine in the 1980s up until the 30s and then of course the the the New Deal in the beginnings of the WPA program where a lot of American airports were rebuilt. You had a you had a much more sort of civic minded public approach and which really mirrored what was going on with you know the rebuilding of post offices and train stations and high schools. And again it was pretty presume it was architects had a very difficult time imagining what this new form of

transportation kind of demanded from them and came up with very predictable. Solutions that look you know they could just as easily have been a town hall or a high school or something you know very central entryways kind of narrow corridors and a frontal centralized ceremonial kind of sense of architecture that was comforting and familiar. Meanwhile you know at a out on the sides of these things in fact midways a good example in Chicago. You know you have the very sort of classical centralized form in the in the middle and then you have these kind of gangly odd looking fingers and boarding docks sprouting all over the place. And in a sense that's true. You know that's the true vocabulary of what this new form of architecture is a BAD. And I make a point at some point in the about the second or third chapter in American architecture critic Ningi Kidder Smith took a trip through Europe sort of analyzing post were European modernism and described this one airport the new terminal at

Gatwick in England and he described its quality of airport and its because it wasn't trying to be something other than what it was. It wasn't trying to be a train station or you know a temple or a city hall and it was a very narrow glass and steel building and that's the first sign I see of a critic kind of recognising an inherent beauty in this thing that to most of us seemed kind of strange and so there is the beginning of of seeing you know Proust said something wonderful about it. Nineteenth century train stations he called the marvelous but tragic you know he saw everything up in 1903 in terms of you know the industrial revolution but also the shift in the sense of time and space and memory being altered by these this new form of transportation the railroad. And I think it's you know it's very similar to now with the airport you have this wonderful sense of the future which we don't have much anymore but you know the expectations up through the 60s was that we really

would get to that point where you know all the stewardesses were beautiful and everybody could fly supersonic and be in Paris in two hours and the world would be wonderful and of course something else came along. I like to have you talk a little bit about the title of the book. This comes from a very one of the very big very famous names in the history of architecture like cobras EAA who who said this in the back I guess 1930s that an airport should be naked. What did he mean. Why that. Yeah it's a great that's a good question he then the name just sort of screamed out to be used that expression screamed at to be used as the title of the book. It was actually in 46 I think that right after the war he was. He was speaking at a national aviation convention in Paris and I guess you know when Europe was starting to try to think how they were going to rebuild their cities and their airports. And he was asked to kind of give an overview. And he said look the beauty of an airport is in wide open spaces you know

it's not about the architecture it's about the airplane itself you know this wonderful kind of machine god sitting in the middle of the field. So don't have any other distractions and he did these very. We don't know what he would have done if he designed an airport but he did these very sketchy drawings of terminals that were actually underground with glass some kind of glass ceiling so that people would be in the terminals and looking up at the at the airplanes on the field. Otherwise you wouldn't see anything except for you know the tarmac and the airplanes. So he said after that he said you know an airport is in wide open spaces and airports should be naked. And he thought that that's what he meant that he should just be the airplanes but also that it shouldn't be evoking trying to evoke something from the 100 century or something from you know the pre-industrial revolution it should be about what the thing itself was which was the airplane and high speed travel. Well you know. Given the fact that that certainly over time some celebrated architects

have looked at the airport and looked at it as a possibility to do something interesting and to create a building that says something that expresses perhaps some of our great aspirations. Given the fact that what has happened over time to air travel is that it has become more of a method of mass transit and now even in as much as people complain about it being uncomfortable and that there's not much in the way of amenities anymore. What seems really to be important to people is that they want to get there as quickly as possible and they want to get there for the lowest fare as possible so it's become something of the equivalent of riding the bus. You know given the fact that that's what has happened to air travel and that's the way people think about it. Should we really expect that an airport is going to be anything more than a. Big Bus Station that is that's a really good point. And you you know beginning really in the early 1970s with with the coming of the jumbo jets that that era that's when that era began and you can see it you know really distinctly at places like

JFK also at O'Hare and L.A.X. in San Francisco where you know these these really kind of lighter than air almost whimsical 1960s Jet Age terminal suddenly get these enormous additions you know and instead of having you know a sexy cocktail lounge or restaurant you know kind of a four star restaurant on the top of the terminal. You get these mass food courts you know with with microwave food and you get you know just everything becomes the same mass market and like cattle kind of shifting cattle around and that's where most of our experience you know most of our experience is that side of it unless we're you know we're much older and remember the 1930s but there's something that came out I think starting really in the 1980s where you know to be competitive in the in the global airline market you do need to sort of offer something special especially you know in the 80s and early 90s in the Pacific Rim you started to get you know. If you spent half that you're pretty expressions like Norman ster Norman Foster's new

airport in Hong Kong the new Singapore airport Kuala Lumpur has a fantastic new airport. And there you know that's where the airport is used as a lure for a new kind of global capital and I think that's that's brought back a lot of the sense of and I think even the United terminal in Chicago is an example of that that you know when you're competing in a very busy. Individual airlines need to do something that's that's luring new passengers. Our guest in this hour focus 580 is Allister Gordon. He is an author critic curator contributing editor to house and garden and well magazines and has written for a number of other publications. He has a new book out which is titled naked airport A Cultural History of the world's most revolutionary structure and it's published by Metropolitan Books. If you're interested you can head out to the bookstore and look for the course questions comments here are welcome to the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2

9 4 5 5. I'm interested and you know we've sort of sketched an overview here of going back and talking a little bit about early airport design because one of the interesting things that you look at is the fact that people particularly I guess here in the United States which was a little bit behind Europe and the growth and development of the airline industry and also places for four planes to take off and land and people to go and get on the plane that people got around to designing airports they didn't really have much they weren't really sure where to go they didn't know what an airport was supposed to look like and so they did indeed fall back on other kinds of structures that they knew and other kinds of people moving places like like train stations for example I guess they feel that was. What a natural thing to do to borrow from something else to try to build this new thing that was in some senses the same in and out of course in other ways different. Yeah absolutely and I mean the best example of that is in a makes so much sense and in American culture

is Henry Ford you know saw this possibility of the airline in aviation it's a new market for him and for his sort of Fortean system of you know mass production. So he was you know not only making airplanes the Ford like the Ford try motor but he was building airports and the first was in Dearborn which I guess argue believes probably that it might be the first comprehensively planned American airport and it had a very simple you know almost temple like structure as a passenger terminal very well separated from the aviation works in the hangar as you know which were noisy and dangerous and greasy and everything. So that was important I mean they recognized that passengers needed the sort of symbolic. Place that was separated from where the airplanes were repaired which you know before it would be you know you kind of arrive in an airfield and sit around in a hangar waiting for the next plane if you're lucky you'd sit on a mail bag in the back of the plane and then float you know the big shift of course was with the Lindbergh flight you know to Paris and

29 and then after that after I mean I'm 27 I'm sorry. And then after that everything really changed because there was suddenly this heroic figure flying all over the United States. At soon after his trip to Paris promoting the building of new airports every municipality in America was sort of competing against each other to outdo the other city in the best in the brightest new airport now of course that was sort of came to a halt with the crash and the depression but that got the system going and people kind of exploring what you know what. What was this place. How was this place supposed to kind of symbolize you know a public a public space. There was a major. Design Competition in 1029 sponsored by the Lehigh concrete company and that most of the entries to that were very very conventional Bode's art you know buildings that looked like some of them look like a lot so some of them looked like city halls. You had extremely guard

submission by Lloyd Wright who was Frank Lloyd Wright's oldest son. That I think you know was the most interesting of the bunch because it it was this very peripheral building around a circular field and he understood the notion that aviation demanded a completely new paradigm for what architecture could be. So was this very narrow building and the roof was raked at an angle that was equivalent to the angle of the center of an airplane so he was he was very he had worked in an aviation factory when he was young and understood the nature of aviation so you have all these kind of different architects playing around not really being sure which should be and I found that to be you know kind of fascinating you know that part of it was denial part of it was you know what do we do with this. How is this going to change our lives and how is architects to interpret and interpret that change. I think it's interesting and then maybe this is just in the nature of architecture that part partly it is an exploration of ideas and

that. Not necessarily intended to be something that you would you might not go out and build but it does fascinate me that so many of these visionary architectures architects had these odd things that you'd have to ask. As in the case of Wright's airfield that head does not have conventional runways or you know something like the designs of putting airports in the middle of this enormous cities with blocks of skyscrapers. You'd have to say now from a practical point of view would you really want to be flying a plane in there or how does. How exactly does an airport without conventional runways work. Right it doesn't really seem that they you know that they focus much on the practicalities of takeoff and landing. Well I think most of that was paper architecture was never you know they never thought any of that would be built. I mean look at the CIA when he was drawing his city for 3 million people and that I think that's what you're for and yet you know he has this airfield it's course called the Central Air Station

and it was completely suicidal kind of airport because you the pilots would have to fly down between the great glass skyscrapers into the central airfield and you know look at the good never been up in an airplane with you. And he drew that and then you know subsequently became an avid aviation buff and realized that that was absurd and that airports needed to be outside of the city central. But but all those early utopian architects in the 20s and early 30s they saw the airport as kind of a key to the new the new city that it could somehow if you had an airport in the center like St. Eliot the famous you know and short lived Futurist Italian architect in vision transforming the lawn with this enormous kind of central station that would have trains running underground and then an airport on the roof and they were I would say there are hundreds of versions of that you see in the 1900s around the world again it was visionary it had no it you know had no reality to it.

But the people who were being all actually building real airports were you know it's pretty present exim pull affairs for for not that many people who are flying but that of course changed in the 1930s and especially change after World War 2 when you had you know thousands and thousands of Shiites coming back who'd flown all over the world who were used to flying you know airlines were more competitive. There were more airfields that had been built during the war and you had suddenly a new culture of mass mass air travel which you've never had before. We have a couple of callers here the someone Carphone So we'll get. Write to them on line number four. Hello. Yeah. Can you hear me OK. Yes. Yeah I have been joining the program this morning that quite a bit bringing back a lot of memories I'm on 50 years on and I grew up actually right next to Midway and oh about 10 15 years ago I used to fly quite a bit as a consultant and I just I think I remember coming to these airports be it New York Chicago sort of off you know and the ticket taker actually saying wow you

know only for your flight but if you run it through the terminal you can catch an earlier flight and I remember running and my wife and I took a long vacation this summer with our kids and there's no more running an airport thing if you take off your shoes and it's it says David said it's a necessary evil nowadays but it's kind of it's kind of sad. Do you want to get there you just want to get out of theirs as quickly as possible it's much like a greyhound bus with wings. It's not just I have these fun memories I want to go to right. It strikes me as these movies that came out in the early 60s with Tony Curtis and Cliff Robinson about the jetsam is all very sexy and very romantic and a lot of people at that point hadn't flown so I was like a mysterious thing and everyone was a movie star and the stewardesses or rather foreign and of course that's that's all gone now. But but I want to make good. Observations and those kind of shit that we lost that with the security

thing and now an airport is just a means to an end I suppose. But darn it I just wanted to make a comment. JUROR Well thanks for the comments on the missed garden you want to react to any of the any of that. No that's interesting I think that's how a lot of people feel that one of the another reason I like the title naked airport was something happened as the caller was describing when you know this of course happened way before 9/11 in the early 60s. You started to have the first hijackings to Cuba and this new sensibility you know by by 970 you had architects were being hired there was there one or two firms I mention in the book who would specialize in designing maximum security prisons and they were brought in to redesign some of these international you know rival terminals where they had to deal with the possibility of terror specially in places like Miami where you had. So this idea of you know the naked airport of the great transit sense of transparency and openness sweeping space that you've had in early airports at least in the jet age

suddenly becomes internalised and all these wonderful glass pavilions are boarded over. This happened at Kennedy in the international arrivals building a member I think was 1972 to suddenly that thing that was called that Central Asian is called The Glass fishbowl. It was completely boarded over so that the terrorists couldn't signal each other hijackers could signal each other and and then you got to the first I think 70. I have in my books around the same year you have the first metal detectors coming in so suddenly the sense of openness and transparency transferred from the architecture to these you know this machinery that's actually scanning your body and scanning your bag and and it becomes a whole other kind of experience but again I think it's the first time most of us experience that kind of technology whether you like it or not it's horrible to be sure and it's depersonalizing But again it's par it's again the sort of frontier of of what it is to be human in the modern world and then we run back to our Victorian home and try to forget about it. But it's very much there.

Yeah just thinking listening to the caller and thinking reading the book and you talk about your experiences it makes me think back to when I was a kid grew up in the Chicago area and I remember having been taken to O'Hare Airport just to watch the planes take off and land right. This is this was a this was a kind of entertainment. You just cannot avoid it. Anybody not doing that now. Let's go out to the airport and watch the planes take off. Yeah I remember being taken to see Kennedy I think the very first year to central Larry called Liberty Plaza open and it was all these dancing colored fountains that had been based on I learned subsequently of course you know it had been based on barça funny idea but you know of course they did away with that. Five years later for parking lots but I have this extraordinary members think same kind of memory of going and watching the planes take off and having a fancy dinner in the restaurant and it was of course that wonderful. Well let's we have another caller here in Belgium which is a nearby community over near Danville it's line number four.

Hello. Yes. Your conversation puts me in mind of many memories. I was very young lad. I live in what's now called Baltimore Washington International. At that time was called Friendship International. And everybody would stand on top of the air. Watch the planes come and go. Then a very large observation area there you can watch planes come and go which just don't do anymore do them you just don't even go hard to get to see or your loved ones leave. But but the point I was going to bring out is in the early 70s I left from Indianapolis and flew to Atlanta and Indianapolis was kind of a new airport. And that going bustling in Atlanta there are rightly I'm in the verge of changing one of those really old airports you know the ones that I had in different buildings in different spots and like you said you ran from one from one building to the next to get their planes and we flew them to Puerto Rico and the airport got just a little bit older and we

are finally the destination was in Poland in the British Virgin Islands where it was nothing more than a grass. Which of that the best of all. Yeah and that was just such a great trip to see you when you went from one thing to another and as we went along I'm sure nowadays those things don't even exist in those kind of places. Obviously it wasn't a jet that landed in the last place it was you know a four or five person airplane and it was just it just. What a magnificent magnificent ride to see the different things. Didn't really have much of a question but just not as interesting to mention that the Atlanta airport I think the one you're talking about is in line it was in the transition then from the old Hartsfield exactly six years terrible to think that the ferry called the mid-field complex which was as far as I know the first direct result of Jimmy Carter's deregulation of the airline business. So you had for the first time an airport you know this huge sort of rabbit warren of an airport being designed by the airlines themselves. So there

was really very little in the way of you know passenger amenities it was all bottom line it was it was all about how being and how do you get in you know this plane load a crew through the terminal to you know to transfer to another plane and of course I think that was might have been the bottom the bottom of the barrel in terms of air travel on it was hard. It was truly heart. Well thank you very much sir. Thanks for the go go to someone here in Indiana. This is line number one. Hello hello. Yes a couple questions in broad brushstrokes I guess if we still had the flying clipper is this thing about architectural aspects of airports are probably quite different I would imagine. Secondly at one time there was a moralist war going on between airline people in a broad sense and the people who had power lines throughout the United States back to the old series of movies or was it

made just on that part about the you know the that he wrote getting the high wires and dying in flames and things like that. I was wondering if you could give some sketches on the in the sense of the more negative aspect other than what you've already done about the airports like taking away farmland and causing environmental problems and things like that. And I guess now we're at the place where almost become an icon and we used to talk about the trains were never on time. Now it's good that the airplanes are never on time. Thank you. I don't I wish I had gone in into more of that issue in my book as I think it's a it's an incredibly important part of the story it's very it's very difficult to trace that that you know that's almost like an entirely different book but it's a fascinating subject how airports have changed the environment in a very direct impactful way and they've been a lot of studies on that. I just mentioned sort of same kind of benchmarks in you know if you will with obviously the coming t the

Concord the citizens groups getting together and mobilizing and Ralph Nader got involved at one point in the mid 60s and you have a kind of an airport really by 67 68 you have this kind of anti airport movement that you never had before and that was that was just coming out of the reality of the air. Airports were expanding into residential neighborhoods. They didn't have any more room to expand specially in older cities like Chicago New York and San Francisco and you know you airports tended to push out into the sea more and more and then that was a whole other environmental disaster and there's that in the early 70s you get a rash of dozens of these plants and they were seriously considered at the time to build enormous new supersonic airports at well out in the ocean. You know God knows what that would have done to environmental issues but. It's just the story in a way almost comes to an end at that period because there is at least in the Western Europe and the United States there's very little new kind of airport building from scratch it's it becomes more about reconfiguring what you

have readjusting and kind of in some cases even downsizing at one of the callers mentioned friendship airport in Baltimore. And that was when that was built after the war they expected to come to the fuge knew that both Baltimore Philadelphia and Washington D.C. would use and they'd actually it was the one case where they had over estimated and the airport had it have been quite empty for years after that through the 50s through the Cold War period. Well it's a I'm not sure what's going on in other places but certainly that is a story that continues today. We can see it here at O'Hare where in last couple of years where they've been talking about expanding the airport and the building a couple of new runways that met with a lot of opposition from people's people whose homes were standing on the place where they're talking about putting the runways. Now the weather is a. A lot of concern about what it is that gets torn down to make the runway and also something that's probably a very Can a continuing always has been and maybe always will be a concern for people who live around the airport and that is the noise that's generated by

the planes taking off and landing. There's a long history to that too there's. There was a period where the Newark Airport was shut down and I'm in I think in 1956 because about four or five within a one month period four or five planes crashed into either Elizabeth. Yeah I think it was Elizabeth New Jersey which is the residential area right near Newark Airport. And you know horrible scenes of disaster with with whole neighborhoods burning down and you had the first presidential commissions I think Truman appointed a whole commission to look into that kind of you know safety its safety radius around airports but of course that that simple once you have an airport established an urban zone and then residents move you know encroach closer and closer to the airport. You're going to have that that issue whoever comes first it doesn't matter it just becomes a very very you know severe kind of political economic and environmental crisis. We have another caller in the home or one number two. Hello.

Oh hello. Yeah I'm one of the things you bring up the airports and some of the old airports I used to feel when I was growing up as an early timid teenager flew to visit family right in the air or People's Express and out of the old Newark terminal. And that was such an interesting their line and their rooms. Twenty seven dollars you paid cash on the plane. Fifty cents for a Coke. But it was such an interesting is a lot like a train station. And in this old airport terminal. And there was a lot of the fun way to fly it was you you were getting what you paid for. But the it sort of was a difference from these nice new modern things with the really fancy jet ways. But I thought I had on airports it was how much more the family in Washington D.C. and I'll fly international. Well pay extra to do that because you can hop on the Metro and you know I

think Newark finally you know as an added that you can get connected to the railway but that's one of those things that I'm wondering how come more airports are connected to the regional metro public transportation system with that option that our public transportation systems are kind of antiquated and nobody puts any money into them. That's a really good question in the end. It's where European you know the development of European airports you're so different than in North America because you hear when the huge boom engine in the jet age of new airport building was happening. You also it was it was concurrent with the expansion of the highway system and the whole kind of core out of automotive mentality that was changing the entire American landscape so you had JFK when you know they in New York they could have easily made a connection a link a direct link to that not only Long Island Rail Road rail way line but the The New York City subway system. But they very

consciously decided not to do that and it was the entire airport as was O'Hare as with San Francisco and L.A. acts which are all pretty much around the same period. They were designed more for the car even than the airplanes so you had these sort of long looping highways coming in and these different decentralized terminals. An enormous parking you know parking areas in the center. And that was that's in a way the cultural history of that entire period which of course were still hung over from that were still desperately trying to you know reconnect the infrastructure that was improperly disconnected to begin with I mean New York at every every month every week in the news coverage is another disaster of this. You know the new the monorail is at Newark and the new rail link at Kennedy and they're just they're just getting going but they're very very slow to connect. Do you suspect it will change with the security problem. You know because it used to be able to I mean that's always now been the problem originally of getting to the airport just to drop somebody off.

It's always been it's recently been just a traffic nightmare. And that you know that that's the wonderful thing about the Metro you step off and walk a hundred yards and you're there. Yeah it's wonderful. And I just I took my family. I was in Holland this past summer and with three little kids and you know we arrive at shippable airport in Amsterdam and within you know a five minute walk we're at the at the train at that subway or the train and we can go wherever we wanted to. It was just you know a fantastic but that's the ideal. You know but we don't have we're not motivated by you know either municipal or or or or national sort of guidelines and urban transportation should should be linked up to make so much sense it's crazy but it's very hard to do it after the fact you know if you have someone like Robert Moses laying out the city so it's divided up by a series of super highways it's very hard to redo that. Thirty years later it's you know it's just almost impossible.

Thank you. All right thanks for the go. Let me just mention again we have. About 15 minutes left in this part of focus 580 and our guest is Allister Gordon. He's contributing editor to house and garden and also do well magazines and has written regularly for other publications The New York Times. His articles have appeared in Architectural Digest and Vanity Fair in town and country. He's the author of several books and a new one that covers the topic here we're discussing it's titled naked airport A Cultural History of the world's most revolutionary structure and it is published by Metropolitan Books here in Champaign Urbana if you'd like to join the conversation the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us that he's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 and we have another caller in or Banna on line 1. I just wanted to add to the point of that discussion it was a public transportation to the airports because I just read recently that a lot of it had to do with

where the lobby happy companies are running out of their products on credit recently. I can't find the fault in the right approach but I have a feeling a program of the press about a plan. It's very interesting I didn't have on it well and thanks for the call. Again other questions comments are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 something that now people who who may design and run airports really have to obviously have to address on almost first and foremost is the security issue. So we know that perhaps people are feeling a little bit uncertain although people continue to fly I think we're getting close to the numbers that flew before September 11th. I guess the one of the things I'm interested in and this is another one of these ways in which the way people think about flying the experience the design of the airport has kind of

come around in a in a circle. The Back in the beginning some of the people who were thinking about how it is they would design this environment. We're taking into account the fact that you could expect that maybe some good percentage of the people who were going to fly maybe had never flown before or it was not just an every day experience for them and that they felt that it was important to make the space feel good to make people feel relaxed feel secure because they were expecting that they might be a little bit uneasy about the whole thing. Well for good reason in the early days you know you had a pretty good. A pretty good chance of not making it there was the subject. Forget the numbers but it was something like I think 1 in 100 passengers died. Up until about one thousand twenty eight I think if you took an American Airlines flight of over certain amount of time so there was a good reason to be nervous and yes architects and planners looked to

frizzle architecture that was familiar so something that looked like you know the local library or bank was reassuring and I think this is come back today I don't think you know we've had enough time since 9/11 to see an airport created that was directly a result of what happened then you know some and I'm sure there will be somewhere maybe in the Far East or the Middle East but instead you have this kind of retrofitting of you know narrower passage ways to do so people have to go through one single security checkpoint. And I haven't had it myself but I've had friends who've had this iris scanning you know which is a whole other kind of you know Orwellian scary science fiction kind of technology where they instantly know your identity through your through your eye. But there there was the beginning I would say in the mid-eighties of the sensibility especially in the in the in the global airports in the in the in the Pacific Rim and and in the Middle East you had the sense of creating an oasis of

calm and of greenery and a lot of like the new Singapore airport and Kuala Lumpur Denver is an example. You know you have to because it is a very good example of the new the new terminal there has a big bamboo growth and there you know there are waterfalls and there's tinkling water and there's just this you know a real effort is made to it to calm down the passenger before he or she gets on the plane and I think that we're going to see more of that you know you're going to see some kind of an completely new configuration that's based on the new security concerns. But combined with some kind of you know almost new age sense of keeping people happy and peaceful. Let's talk with someone else. Mahomet line. Number one right here hello. Hello. Yes morning. This is a very interesting show because just yesterday we returned from Israel and we were at the Ben Gurion Airport and we

went there to visit the holy places that the Haifa face and Haifa Israel. And we flew again on October 22nd to the old terminal and on November 3rd when we left we got out. We flew out of the new terminal which had just opened the day before. So the new chairman all is just fantastic. We were there at 4:30 in the morning and so we didn't see much of the outside but it's huge and beautiful and the train now goes right through that terminal. And then it goes directly to Haifa. When we flew and we had to take a well we took a bus and people took taxis but we like to ride with the local people. So we took a bus but we had to go to the center of Haifa and then take a taxi from there to our hotel. But

that terminal is very impressive. Even there are buses there have when you look at them you can see the tires. You know that's just a new style and it's going to be completely new you know about that airport. I've heard about it yes and I mean I know I know that in Israel you go you really have the sort of some of the first airports designed for obvious reasons you know with with security in mind I think a lot of planners took their cues from Ben-Gurion and other airports in Israel when you know the security issues became equal in other parts of the country but I would see Israel sort of led the way in that but I don't I don't know that much specifically about that airport. Another thing about doing this book there are so many airports in this. Every single one of them you could write a book about them and they all go through changes constantly. And to keep up is almost impossible so I was trying to really you know find key examples of of you know how to how architects dealt with you know urban situation or the human situation or the the social kind of

dimension and just create a very human narrative about that because it's it's a it's a Nora you know to put it mildly it's an early subject to kind of get at get a handle on and write as one individual you know what is everybody you know who's read this book or who who who have talked to about it has a very personal story to tell because we've all had you know nice experiences but you know more often than not we've had kind of nightmare experiences and we we want to share those. And it's you know it's not like I had written a book about climbing Mt. Everest and not that many people have done that. This is something that everybody has done so it's in that way it's fascinating to me that everybody who's reviewed the book too has kind of made a point of beginning their reviews with their own worst experiences it's a nightmare so it's sort of something in a strange way that we all you know that brings us together as a community. You know it is a global community have I identified with it. When I heard you this morning are experientially resent. I just want to say that we had a wonderful time in answering all and people should not be afraid of going

there. Thank you. Thank you for the call. Others are certainly welcome again maybe got about three four minutes if somebody wants to call real quick. Three three three WRAL eight hundred two two 220. Well now it seems that there are at least some people who are thinking that at some time in the future there will be a market for space travel for commercial space travel at least putting people into some kind of a vehicle that gets up into what technically is space for a short period of time. And it's been we now have a private venture that's that's demonstrated that they could do it. And they're talking about selling tickets for people to take that kind of a ride now. It's not the kind of thing that everybody would be able to do or maybe would want to do. But I guess they think that there's enough of a market now and I guess what I'm I'm I'm trying to connect this with the way people once felt about flying an airplane that it was it was a wrong. Mantik adventure and it was something that not everybody got the chance to do and I guess I wonder if

if such a business gets going is there a potential again for somebody to to decide that the structures that those people depart from. Again it's an opportunity to make a statement and some kind of a statement again about aspirations and their triumphing over fear. It's a good question I saw that footage like probably most people did and I don't know if I'd want to take that ride. I mean it looks like it was spinning like crazy but you know it seems to me that that might be almost like an extreme sport you know like bungee jumping or something. And that is interesting I think that's part of that's part of aviation now and you have these you know if you're a really avid skier you have to be helicoptered in and I know there are architects who work on these you know the ski lifts the ski. These new kind of ski resorts for very extreme skiing and I'm sure there will be some kind of you know I don't know I think I think the realities of aviation are pretty. It's scary and mundane at the same time you know at one point they're boring and the next minute they're

terrifying and I think that's more what it's about than the aspirational utopian kind of visions that we all love seeing in the you know in the 1930s and then you know for brief golden moments seem to come to realisation maybe in the 1960s or maybe that's just our family I was 10 years old right so that was my fantasy of the gorgeous stewardesses. You know it wearing red uniforms but I think it's it's you know I had this moment about two years ago in Tokyo didn't at the retail airport and I thought this is got to be the most modern moment I've had in the world that my father was dying in that hospital in Bangkok my wife was about to have give birth to twins back in New York. And I had to get back and I you know I took one of the sort of middle of the night flights from Bangkok into Tokyo and they had these you know little tubular hotel rooms these tiny things that you could rent by the hour. And I found myself running one of these things at 4:00 a.m. And you know went to sleep in this

thing that had a voice of a woman coming from behind a little prince of Mount Fuji and you know they they would give you a massage when you woke up and there was this tiny little steam bath. And I thought you know it's sort of this would be terror it would be terrifying future come to pass but it was wonderful kind of. Moment you know in this very stressful situation and I thought this you know this is interesting you know whatever it is I don't know what it is but it's the future it's something to do with the future and I think you know there's no way we can imagine what it is and we're always going to fantasize something and then it's going to be it's going to come out come at us in a completely unexpected differently. Well I think that also that points out something that we really don't aren't conscious of but what probably will guarantee there will always be work for architects and architecture critics and that is there is this profound and some although sometimes very subtle relationship between the spaces that we inhabit and how we feel. And that that's just that's that's always been true and that's always going to be true.

Well that's it. That's what makes architecture fascinating beyond you know a specialized kind of scholarly pursuit is that it you know really do even more than art in a way that reflects the state of you know the humankind you know that if it had shows the utopian aspirations that we all you know strive for but it has to deal with the realities of you know the economics and the politics of the day and I think airports in their way you know because they're such 20th century. Artifact you know for lack of a better word. I think there's a lot to teach us. There's a lot there's a lot we can learn about ourselves in our entire culture through through thinking about these places that usually just irritate us you know and we want to get through it quickly and safely as possible but it's sort of sometimes looking looking us right in the face. You know we don't we don't want to take the time to think about what it really means. Yeah. Well we're going to have to stop and I should apologize I get invited calls and suddenly got a bunch and now we don't have time to take them so my biology is to the people who are hanging on. If you're interested in reading

more about the subject look for this book that we have been talking about by our guest Alister GORDON It's titled naked airport A Cultural History of the world's most revolutionary structure published by Metropolitan Books. Mr. Gordon thank you very much for talking with us. David thank you very much was a pleasure.