EVOLUTION OF AIRPORTS

Seminar and Technical Writing

PA494

Submitted by:
Priyanjita Adhikari (114AR0002)

Supervised by:
Prof. Tuhin Subhra Maparu

DEPARTMENT OF PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, ROURKELA
Abstract
This report explores the most important airport designs in the world, the first dedicated structure being
the Wright Brothers’ Huffman Prairie in Ohio, founded in 1904. This report gives a brief idea of the
evolution in the design of the terminal building, how it has developed over the years because of numerous
factors like commercial flight expansion leading to some classic designs of airports. Airports have come to
symbolize progress, freedom, trade and the aspiration of the host nations at the international stage.
Thus, the objective here is oriented towards a general comprehensive study of some of the iconic airport
terminal buildings as well as get an idea about airport architecture through ages in a nutshell.

Key words:
Airport, terminal building, hangar, air traffic control, structure, aircraft, architecture

1. INTRODUCTION 3. LITERATURE REVIEW

Air travel has been described as the defining mode  Origin of Airport
of transportation of the twentieth century. No other
form of travel compares with the speed, scale and
glamour of contemporary air travel. The airport The first functional airport has been claimed by
terminal is the central building of the air transport Huffman Prairie at Simms Station given that it had
system. Its architecture reflects the glamour, scale a modest public face as well as a testing function,
and technological prowess of this fast-growing the aircrafts flew longer distances and the pilots
industry. Airport terminals are the cathedrals of our were trained at this facility. This 4-hectare patch of
age –a huge public space where people gather, wait, damp cow pasture, with its timber hangars date back
eat, sometimes sleep, and usually shop. These are to 1904-5.
truly twenty-first-century buildings –fluid space for
fluid functions using high technology architecture
for spatial containment and cultural expression.
Thus, architects have been giving shape to this fluid
space with chaotic functions to ease the traffic and
also to give characteristic to the building.

In many ways the history of the airport is the history

of the twentieth century itself. It is the story of
modernity acted out in space, speed, light and flight. Figure 1. The Wright Brothers in May 1904, with
Within the typical airport there is urbanism based their Flyer II at Huffman Prairie, Ohio, USA
upon rapid movement large fluid spaces for social Next, it was Von Zeppelin who achieved a 24-hour
exchange, powerful retail, conference and hotel flight service in 1906 with a floating hangar at
agglomerations and an architecture which seeks to Friedichshafen on Lake Constance Germany built in
give identity to an alienating environment. 1908. This claimed to be the first passenger
terminal. Airports and water have always enjoyed
2. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES symbiotic relationship given it reduces noise for the
This report will be dealing with the architectural dwellers nearby, air current is more favourable near
quality of airports which is recognized by its water bodies and crashes more survivable.
terminal buildings: they represent the spirit of the
aviation age in their form and external and internal
details. The main objective of this study is as
follows:
 To explore and understand airport architecture
 To understand various zones and types of
airport infrastructure
 To analyse the effectiveness of airports as fluid
spaces and the role of architect in reducing the
chaos
 To analyse the importance of airports in giving
characteristic to a city architecturally
 Figure 2. Zeppelin’s floating aircraft with airship
LZ-4 Figure 3. The first Tempelhof Terminal in Berlin,
1926-28

Figure 4. London’s Croydon

Next in the line to inspire architects to give shape to
Figure
airport was Chicago’s first 7. TheMidway
airport, ground floor
builtplan
in of the Dublin
Real airports were starting to appear by 1909 with terminal shows howbuilding
it curves with
away from the airfield
the model airport being London airport at Hendon. 1927 and in 1931 a modern terminal
It was a fully operational airfield, first of its kind in Art Deco internal details were added by city
London. architect Paul Gerhardt.

The “control tower” was coming up more like a

gazebo or belvedere, complete with a balcony
overlooking the airfield.

 Emergence of a new building type

In Europe, where the principles of aviation were

well established, the modern airport swiftly emerged
in the inter-war years.

Berlin’s Templehof and London’s Croydon were

regarded as model airports in 1925-28. Croydon was
said to be well equipped and best-operated terminal Figure 5.1930s Chicago’s Midway showing a
in the world at that time with its three cinder complex interlocking runway layout
runways and steel-framed hangars, passenger
Next was the original Dublin airport terminal which
waiting rooms, post office and shops, with a 150
was the most important pre-war Irish building in the
seater restaurant.
International Style. Designed by a team of architects
within the Office of Public Works led by Desmond
FitzGerald, the design was more or less complete by
1937 and the building completed by 1940.

Figure 6. Dublin airport terminal
The building is curved in plan with circular ends
reminiscent of work produced in Holland in the
years before the war while the curved plan is
reminiscent of the airport at Hamburg built in 1930.
The outer or longer curve faces the airfield while the
inner curve embraces the incoming passengers.
The buildings curved form, curved ends and stepped
floors give the building a more finished look than if
the ends had simply been cut straight as happened
with Hamburg. The open balconies that are present
on two levels of the design were for many years open
to the public and proved very popular as did the large
restaurant with a view of the airfield.
The next in line to inspire as the model building was
the second Le Bourget by Georges Labro in 1936-7
which put right the mistakes of the first and
pioneered the linear terminal building. By the end of
the decade people were flying in large comfortable
Douglass, Boeings and other renowned aircrafts and
comfort and luxury were the key factors for
hospitality; along with the advancement in the
terminal building design.
 The imagery of flight
With time and evolution, the airport buildings were
seen as buildings of imagery rather than just
transport hubs.
The Dublin Airport of 1937-40 shows the overt plan,
informed by the ocean-liner imagery of the modern
style. It appears to have a cockpit and wings as if
permanently poised for flight.
Figure 8. Dublin Airport (1936-41) aerial view
Foster’s American Air force museum at Duxford,
near Cambridge embodies multivalent imagery, all
to do with planes. It is a concrete blister hanger, so
is appropriate for the decommissioned military
aircraft it contains.
Figure 9. American Air Force Museum
Another imagery was by Frank Gehry in the
Aerospace Hall at California in 1984 in Los
Angeles. A fighter jet is pinned on the surface like a
brooch and the entire building in its form picks up
the dynamism of the image, but without making
direct reference to it.

Figure 11. TWA Terminal

The structure consists of a shell of reinforced

concrete with four segments that extend outward
EeroFigure 10. Aerospace
Saarinen Museum,
reinvented LA
the typology of the from a central point. The concrete "wings" then
airport buildings with the two most pioneering unfold on either side of the exterior, preparing for
terminal buildings of the century. One is the flight. Within the concrete, the structure is
TWA terminal at Kennedy International reinforced with a web of steel.
Airport, NYC and the Dulles International The TWA Terminal became an official landmark in
Airport for Washington D.C. The former is a 1994, voted on by the Landmarks Preservation
more like a bird like structure and the latter is Commission. In 2005 the Port Authority of New
more of an expression of the uplift of flight, York and New Jersey began construction of a new
like an aerofoil roof. terminal facility for JetBlue Airways which was
When Saarinen was commissioned in 1956, completed in 2008 and now partially encircles
the client wanted this building to capture the Saarinen's terminal.
"spirit of flight," and as visitor rush to make it
to their flight there is no choice but to admire
the swooping concrete curves that embraced
flyers into the jet age. In order to capture the
concept of flight, Saarinen used curves to create
spaces that flowed into one another. The exterior's
concrete roof imitates a bird in flight with two
massive "wings." The interior consists of a
continuous ribbon of elements, all whisking
themselves in from the exterior, so that ceilings
continuously run into walls and those walls become
floors. Figure 12. TWA Terminal floor plan

The growth in aviation at the end of World War II

led to the proposal and passing of the Washington
Airport Act of 1950, which stated that there would
be federal backing for a second airport. After many
proposed sites were not passed, President
Eisenhower chose a small town once known as
Willard as the best location for the airport in 1958.
The Dulles terminal has two floors; the first for
departing passengers, ticketing and concessions, and
the other for arriving passengers, baggage claim, and
ground transportation. One of the key moments of
innovation in this terminal was the employment of
new transport vehicles known as mobile lounges,
which resembled a sort of giant luxury bus and
carried up to ninety people from the terminal to their
plane.
on the north and south facades, whose perteluces
withstand the cantilevered section.
The main hall is triangular and its backbone is
formed by three arches braced together by diagonal
beams that rest on a concrete mass raised on the east
side and two supports integrated with lift towers on
the west side. The upper arch of the column is a
triangular box section steel, while the two lower
arches are composed of steel pipes. Transverse
bracing members vary in size and assembled four by
four along the core tubes. The most striking building
profile is based on the two converging core steel
arches 120 meters long and 40 meters high. Two
large cantilevered balconies enter the space.

Figure 13. Dulles International Airport Adjacent to the hall a service building, made of
concrete with a steel and glass wall facing the central
Another two key buildings would be by architect hall is located.
and engineer Santiago Calatrava. One is the railway
station for the Saint-Exupery airport at Lyons-
Satolas, France. The great curved lantern with its
feather-like steel slats above the organically shaped
part sunken concrete concourse, is clearly enough
like a bird –a somewhat sinister, vulture-like bird –
poised for flight.

The structure of almost forty meters high steel and

concrete is the metaphor of a huge bird that stretches
out its wings, covering or protecting the railway. As
in other structures of the architect, the movement is
present in the profile and arrangement of the
elements of it, its shape also refers to many of the
sculptures of Calatrava as “Bird” and “Bird II”.
Figure 14. Saint Exupery Airport by Calatrava
The central building is given endowed with a
symbolic image of flight, which facilitates its
association with the character of the region, bringing
together the idea of alpine landscape with pulse
progress. The projected cover is like a giant bird that
rises above the train tracks.

This structure of concrete and steel, can also be

interpreted as a cap or helmet mythical heroes
appearing in numerous drawings of Santiago
Calatrava, or other recurring basis the architect as
human eyes with large eyelids, eyelashes and
eyebrows that highlight the way. From the outside,
the main Hall access is via a “portico” formed by a
concrete pillar V shaped termination linking four
steel arches.

The central pair of arches continue the center line of

the roof to form a backbone of leaving the outer
curves spanning the two symmetrical side wings
crystal beams. The adjacent pair of beams jumps 120
feet above the highest and glass lobby of the station
and service core located east. These ribs are raised

Calatrava’s other contribution to the architecture of
flight was Bilbao’s Sondica airport. Located
approximately 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the
city, with a metro connection planned, the new
Sondica Airport terminal is situated across the apron
and runways from the original terminal. Within this
this way, the parking structure is integrated into the
complex both functionally and visually, as is too
rarely the case at airports. In another design
initiative that will encourage overall coherence,
Calatrava's plan for the airport accommodates
provisions for the future construction of auxiliary
facilities, such as hotels and a recreational complex.
Covering the open platform is a curved canopy made
of transparent glass, which allows light to filter
down to the subterranean passageway through
prefabricated glass-brick elements laid in the
platform. The client wanted to connect the
underground passages to create a shopping precinct.

Figure 15. Saint Exupery Airport Section Concrete supports were cast in place using one-piece
formwork, which was moved and adjusted to the
new facility, there is considerable potential for
gradient for each new casting. The exposed concrete
future expansion. Sondica Airport was able to
ceiling appears to be two separate elements that
handle 2 million passengers per year when it opened
meet at the center but is actually one continuous,
in November 2000. By 2005, the airport was
undulating surface. Despite the complexity of its
handling 3.8 million passengers annually (25% of
shape, this ceiling proved to be cheaper to build than
international flights) and 4000 tons of cargo.
a suspended structure. The need to close the station
Sondica Airport will ultimately be able to
at night resulted in the development of hydraulically
accommodate up to 10 million passengers a year. In
activated devices to shut the entrances and in some
1990, Bilbao Airport had reached the limits of its
cases protect them from the weather.
development.

The organizational and architectural center of the

complex is a large glazed hall. As the steel structure
of the aerodynamic roof sweeps upward in the
direction of the airfield, it spans the administrative
areas, restaurants and waiting areas. Located behind
the canted glazed facades, these waiting areas
directly overlook the apron and runways. The
triangular plan of the hall follows the natural flow of
passengers toward a transverse linear walkway that
leads to the gates. A generously curved, glazed
entrance on the north side of the terminal allows full
use of the 36 meters (118 ft) traffic drop-off area.
The elevated upper level of this vehicle access is for
Figure 16. Sondica Airport
departures; the lower level is for arrivals. In non-
glazed areas, the concrete structure of the east and  Conclusion
west wings is clad in a unifying skin of aluminium.

The terminal is connected by a 100 meters (328 feet)

subterranean passageway to a four-story parking
garage, which can accommodate 1500 vehicles. The  references
garage is partially recessed into a landscaped rise. In