Air travel has influenced the architecture and design of our century to a perhaps even greater degree than the automobile. Coloured pictures

Air travel has influenced the architecture and design of our century to a perhaps even greater degree than the automobile. This lavishly illustrated, expertly researched book traces the history of that influence, examining the development of airports around the world, as well as such related building types and topics as aircraft factories, maintenance hangars, notable aeroplane designs, and airline corporate imagery. From the simple covered terraces and wooden plane shelters erected for air shows prior to World War I, to the very latest creations for Pacific rim airports, building for aviation has always oscillated between the two poles of civil engineering and purely architectural considerations.

 

Thus, at a very early date avant-garde architects, among them Erich Mendelsohn, Le Corbusier, and Antonio Sant’Elia, produced visionary airport designs. Today, while some important architectural and engineering firms concentrate on airport facilities, distinguished individuals, such as Sir Norman Foster, Helmut Jahn, and Kisho Kurokawa, create extraordinary airport complexes as well. Within less than a century of the establishment of commercial airlines and the beginnings of modern air traffic, airports have changed the cities and regions they serve. Starting out as installations at the fringes of the metropolitan area, they later became centres of activity within it, and today are often virtually cities in themselves.

 

This chequered history has been affected by a subtle web of social and economic factors, as the airport progressed from an emblem of civic and national pride to a mechanized processor of mass transit, from a catalyst of urban and regional growth to a forum for free-market enterprise. Written by experts from Britain, Germany, Holland, and the U.S. – among them a pilot of thirty years’ international flying experience – the essays in this volume discuss all these developments, together with the legal and financial role played in them by local and national government.

 

The illustrations throughout the book encompass everything from plans and corporate identity designs to documentary photographs and computer renderings. With the end of the millennium fast approaching, particular interest will attach to the images of airport buildings and aircraft designs scheduled for completion in the twenty-first century. This wide-ranging international survey will prove an indispensable reference for both architecture and aviation specialists and enthusiasts.