"The silver thread is broken, the golden bowl is shattered, the amphora of the fountain breaks, the bucket falls into the well" (Ecclesiastes 12:6)
Whether one wants to understand the pandemic in biblical terms or just as a global event, it has shifted reality allowing perspectives and sensibilities not visible during business as usual, the previously dominant global model, in spite of the warnings. Global mobility has morphed into "stay at home". This article describes my recent international flight, its surreal aspects and the impacts of the pandemic on airports and their cities. It is part of a series which tries to gauge the future of cities.
When I approached Dulles International (code letters: IAD) it could have been 1962, the year the airport opened. In the year after opening the airport served 50,846 passengers. Just as back then, on this Saturday June 13, 2020, the parking lots were mostly empty, and curbspace on the departure deck was plentiful.
Saarinen's now expanded building stood uncluttered, grand and majestic in the early afternoon sun, beautiful as on its first day.
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Dulles Airport 1962: designed for jets |
Except for the TWA terminal at JFK in New York, (also designed by Eero Saarinen), there is hardly an airport building that better expresses the aspirations, the glamour and the optimism of early commercial air-travel than the Dulles main building. Unlike BWI or many other airports which grew out of old airfields, Dulles was designed from the ground-up for jet-planes.
In 1962 the sky was no longer the limit, in fact it had become the new attraction, even the moon seemed to be within reach. "Man's desire to conquer gravity" (Saarinen). Growth since then has gone beyond all projections. In 1966 the first annual million passengers had been reached and airport cities (aerotroplis) first emerged as an urban concept and then as more or less improvised clusters around the gateways of jet travel. The physical impact of airports on cities began to exceed that of train stations and replace passenger train stations even in larger US cities. Around Dulles a new landscape of hotels, office towers, and..
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Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects