February 2008 - July 2008
Airports—areas dedicated for commercial aircraft to take off and land for the purpose of transporting passengers and freight—have changed considerably since they were first developed in the early twentieth century. Shortly after the end of World War I, Europe, with much of its railroad lines damaged, first established airports, leading the United States by nearly a decade. By the late 1920s, city agencies and aircraft companies began developing airports across the United States. Some designs deemed highly imaginative and visionary at the time, seem naive today. They included plans for landing fields at sea, elevated platforms above cities (1), and giant buildings with rooftop runways. Airports were built where rudimentary airfields had already existed or on large tracts of available open, flat land, as in the case of San Francisco's municipal airport. During this early period, many terminals closely resembled train stations in architectural style and floor plan and commonly featured ticket counters, newsstands, restaurants, and small lobbies. Other designs incorporated the terminal into an aircraft hangar structure. At most airports passengers braved a short walk through the elements to board their flights.
Over the next seven decades, as airliners grew in size and passenger service expanded, airports became specialized. Designers and planners increasingly strove to meet the needs of travelers and airlines alike. Airport architectural designs moved away from retrospective architectural forms, and were conceived in styles emphasizing technological progress. Designs incorporated features unique to air transport such as the control tower, which became a prominent feature. Terminals and concourses became expansive with large windows for viewing airfield operations and ever-greater space dedicated to concessions. Shuttles, people-movers, and moving sidewalks transported passengers between and along terminals, while jet bridges allowed them to board aircraft directly from their gates, shielded from the weather.
From conception to operation, many types of documentation have been produced relating to the design of American airports. These included general studies of airport design (1, 2, 4), plans, architectural renderings, promotional advertisements, magazine articles (3, 5), magazine publications (6), and airport guides.