Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure

by Alastair Gordon

The first full cultural history of the ultimate modern structure: the airport, revealed as never before

Since its origins in the muddy fields of flying machines, the airport has arguably become one of the defining institutions of modern life. In Naked Airport, critic Alastair Gordon ranges from global geopolitics to action movies to the daily commute, showing how airports have changed our sense of time, distance, style, and even the way cities are built and business is done.

Gordon introduces the people who shaped this place of sudden transition: pilots like Charles Lindberg, architects like Eero Saarinen, politicians like Fiorello La Guardia, and Hitler, who built Berlin’s Tempelhof as a showcase for Fascist power. He describes the airport’s futuristic contributions, such as credit cards, in the form of fly-now-pay-later schemes, and he charts its shift in popular perception, from glamorous to infuriating. Finally, he analyzes the airport’s function in war and peace—its gatekeeper role controlling immigration, its appeal to revolutionaries since the hijackings of the 1960s, and its new frontline position in the struggle against terror.

Compelling and accessible, Naked Airport is an original history of a long-neglected yet central creation of modern reality and imagination.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Aviation, Urban Planning, Travel, History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Alastair Gordon is an award-winning critic, curator, cultural historian and author whose work bridges art, architecture and the environment. For over twenty years he wrote for The New York Times and later became Contributing Editor for WSJ. Magazine, where he also created the popular “Wall-to-Wall” design blog. His essays have appeared in Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Le Monde and Dwell, among others. The author of more than twenty-eight books, including Weekend Utopia, Naked Airport and Theater of Shopping, Gordon also co-founded Gordon de Vries Studio, an imprint devoted to books on the human environment. He has taught at Harvard University and received multiple honors for excellence in architectural criticism.

Reviews

[Kristie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first chapter captured my imagination -- Charles Lindbergh, on his solo flight across the Atlantic, didn't recognize the airport at Bourget, France as an airport and had to circle around it twice before he was confident he had arrived in Paris. Imagine! It's impossible to not recognize airports these days, but they had to involve into the mammoth, organized structures they are today.

Gordon documents that organization, from the early days when airports were just fields, to their early architectural development as something like train stations. The book is best when discussing airports built (or expanded) in the 1950s and 1960s, like JFK and Dulles International.

The author's palpable sadness about the current annoying state of air travel colors his discussion of airports in the 1980s and 1990s. Since I've not seen many of the airports discussed in the part of the book, it's hard to judge whether this sadness is appropriately applied to the architecture, and the author doesn't help the reader to understand the extent to which that annoyance effects (or is effected by) his architectural criticism.

[jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

very effective survey of airport philosophy and design! nicely paired with trends in aviation tech, architecture, land use & political reality

[Josh Gunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Airports are among my favorite places in the world, despite how awful the experience of flying itself can be. I found this book to be an engaging bit of niche architectural history that tracks the major periods of airport development from the early 1920s until the early 2000s. Thankfully, the book contains many (black and white) illustrations, photos, diagrams and maps to bring the words to life.

Read this if, like me, you're interested in learning, in broad strokes, how these often mundane structures came to be built how they are today. It's fun to see that early airports were built to be aesthetically interesting (some neoclassical, some art deco, etc.), then morphed into what are essentially functional warehouses (Atlanta, LAX, O'Hare).

[Fer Soria · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a great book!
I come from a family of pilots, both my dad and brother. I grew up between airports and to be honest I was not fascinated by them. But my dad and my brother love them. Love every part of them.
I really wanted to get their fascination.. but it took me long.
Now in graduate school I became obsessed with airports for I found I could study them from a different point of view: as a scholar. Using everything I love learning about and applying it to the airports’ logic. And it works. And I am amazed by how complex and symbolic airports are.

I do recommend this book. A lot. You will not regret it.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book about the history of airports, this really should have been a lot better. I think my decision to skim it rather than read it word for word was a good one. I wish it had gone into more detail about certain things. Unlike a lot of people I love going to the airport, which is why this book appealed to me. Unfortunately I was left disappointed.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I heard the author on a podcast and wanted to know more, but for me, his summary on that show was more compelling than the full story. Still, I learned a lot and will be paying attention to the architecture around me next time I fly.

[Nikky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Most of the book is really focused on architects trying to figure out what an airport meant. Only the chapter focusing on the recent evolution of airports is more interesting, as it incorporates more than just architectural theories.

[Michael Haupt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gordon presents a different perspective on airports showing their development in serving passengers rather than talking about technical development of the airfield.

[Isaac Pritchett · Rating 4 out of 5]

About the architectural history of airports. Surprisingly good read. Interesting stuff to say about a topic I know nothing about.

[Doc Kinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Serviceable Book

Not a bad book for its subject, which, I would guess, is quite niche.

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not super detailed, but it's a good overview of how airport design has been influenced over the past 100 years.

[Tom Tallerico · Rating 4 out of 5]

it’d be nice to have an update of the last 25 years.

Great read, but dated. It’d be nice to have an update from the last 25 years. It stops at 9/11.

[Charles Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and informative reading for an aircraft junkie also curious about architecture (I can't be the only one, can I?). Gordon took on a topic that's surprisingly visceral: why do airports, and air travel, make us feel so melancholy -- so harried, so uncomfortable, so nostalgic for an era most of us never knew? It's amusing and touching to see how our forebears tried to manage the Age of Flight -- brave little Greek-columned terminals, with their brisk railroad-depot aura; silly homages to Versailles and its grandeur that could be appreciated only by air; Buck Rogers center-city circular skyports, teetering atop skyscrapers and land-gutting expressways, autogyros and biplanes flittering in all directions; and eventually, in a golden age that Gordon estimates lasted, oh, two weeks or so, the unleashed imagination of Idylwild/JFK, where real architects made real statements and real beauty. Then, of course, dawned the Age of Lead.

Gordon is generous with drawings and photos, and he makes a good effort to draw his subject out of as many airports, in as many countries, as possible. And for my money, he identified the most resonant themes. These include the stubborn difficulty of saying exactly what an airport is (portal to adventure? transit hub? amusement park? a machine for moving people?), a question intimately linked both to changing technology and the cost of flying. After all, if your flimsy Trimotor has to take off into the wind, an airport should be a big grassy circle. If your plane is a limousine for movie stars and rich businessmen, the terminal should look the part: classic lines, intimate waiting rooms, and don't forget lap robes for the fashionable ladies who get chilly at fourteen thousand feet. Maybe it should be a massive seaside terminal, since much of your traffic in those bygone days would have consisted of long-range flying boats. Somehow it also should put your city's name (or your name, if it happens to be Fiorello LaGuardia) up in lights. What should an airport be?

The author certainly won't pretend that the question has been answered. Every modern air traveler's angst testifies to that. Today's airport is built upon aviation's most durable theme: speed, always more speed, but it somehow feels all wrong. Gordon points out that even the earliest air adventurers felt that malaise, how even when you set off in high spirits to visit faraway people and exotic places, often you ended up writing about what you saw around the airport ... and sometimes you didn't even get off the plane. Commercial flight ceased to be a thrill many, many years ago. After a few times aloft, even our flapper forebears found it boring. In that view, today's airports match today's airplanes rather well: They're all an exercise in getting it over with as fast as possible. But somehow we wish it were done more beautifully.

I have my quibbles with the book. The author didn't deal thoroughly enough with aircraft technology. I would have liked to know how airplane interiors changed along with airport architecture, because surely legroom, amenities, and customer service evolved in tandem with the terminal experience. One of his major themes was how the Jet Age divided what came before with what followed. Yes, but I don't think it's inevitable that fast, cheap jets would lead to a dehumanizing travel experience -- or ugly buildings. Nor do I share the author's regrets about deregulation and its lower fares, hub system, and routing flexibility. It's hard to argue that if people would only pay higher fares, and accept government control of where planes flew and how often, travelers would benefit. In that sense I don't think Gordon was willing to face the truth that when something is lost (good architecture, a gracious approach to travel) something also was gained (mobility even for the non-rich, a globe-trotting freedom for the many that history has never seen before). Airport-as-bus-station is not as handsome to look at, but on a blunt level it gets the job done. Form follows function.

This book was published in 2004, and it should have done a much better job of wrestling with 9/11. It's confined to a very unsatisfying "epilogue" when it should have been the climax. Terrorism, after all, is what destroyed the last vestiges of the airport as a public place, a place of pleasant anticipation, of welcome, of innocent adventure. Fear has transformed airport engineering beyond recognition -- and tomorrow's airports will look nothing like the marvels of the '60s or the train depots of the '30s, or even the airports of the late twentieth century. The demands of security will finish the process of making the airport a sealed, insular, lonely, transient place, devoid of greetings or farewells.

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

A popular history but a solid one.

Although the first half the book dwells too much on the often ridiculous architectural detailing of individual airport terminals (London's was done up like an old manor house, Kansas City had "pleasure grounds" created to look like Versailles), this half also gives a quick and worthwhile history of early airlines. Apparently it was Lindbergh's flight in 1927 which created the American airline industry (passenger figures more than quadrupled the following year). The author also discusses Juan Trippe, who not only created Pan American Airlines, but who dominated South American diplomacy for almost 20 years, negotiated contracts with foreign governments, and ferried displaced dictators back to the United States (such as Cuba's Morales). Apparently too, Harry Guggenheim, head of the Guggenheim foundation, was an airplane enthusiast who donated millions to proselytize for more planes and even paid to create all passenger charter routes at a time when they were considered unprofitable (most airline profits came from air mail).

After World War II, airport terminals changed from mere decorated boxes to creative and complicated structures, and the author turns his focus there. The beginning of the jet age (inaugurated by Juan Trippe's purchases of Boeing 707s in 1958) led to large "apron" buildings," or "loading arcades," like at Boston's Logan airport, while increasing automobile usage spawned decentralized "unit" structures like at JFK. Many airports relied increasingly on long "finger" structures to connect all of their diverse parts, but they still tried to create a monumental experience. Top architects like Edward Durrell Stone were even hired to design airport gas stations.

Airports begin to unravel when jumbo jets (beginning with Juan Tripple's purchase of 747s in 1970 (he's everywhere)) led to even longer "fingers," and security restriction from increased hijacking, and a 1973 federal law, led to the creation of "sterile" and "nonsterile" environments that further crowded the already confusing airports.

Deregulation, however, and the rise of the hub airports, did lead to a re-concentration, such as Atlanta's Hartsfield, to allow transfers, and for the first time in decades there were some attempts to create new monumental entranceways like airports had in the past.

The author basically tells this as a story of rise and decline, from the early decorated boxes to 1960s utopian creativity to today's "sterile" and ad hoc concourse terminals. He does have some hope though that airports in the future, encouraged by hub transfers, will try once again to create a grand and unified experience. Overall, he presents a good case, as well as a good history on a neglected subject.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gordon does not offer a comprehensive, encyclopedic overview of all that transpired between the first rough-and-tumble tin shack in North Carolina to the latest gauzy megastructure in Southeast Asia…thankfully. This is also not some impenetrable esoterica about placeless, globalized space mirroring an increasingly shrinking world - my second guess/fear upon seeing the reasonably sized book. No, this is simply a nicely synthesized and engaging historical narrative about airports and airlines! Concise but seemingly comprehensive enough, Gordon provides a pleasing balance of particular architectural developments, the evolving societal engagement with flying, important political and financial aspects over the years, and interesting-yet-relevant anecdotes. Juan Trippe bulldozes over any pesky, legitimate government for the sake of a new Pan Am connection; yet more tales about the United Fruit Company running/ruining the Americas south of the Rio Grande to, presumably, sell more fruit. It’s a splendid read!

The span of this study encompasses – as the epilogue states – the time between Lindberg (well, really the Wrights) and Bin Laden. In that regard it does end rather abruptly with 9/11. This seems an appropriate stopping point but the conclusion doesn’t seem to convincingly anchor the book. At the same time I found the aspect of flight’s social dimensions throughout the years palpable as portrayed within the narrative. There were the obvious initial fears and curiosity which generally gave way to a well-marketed perception of glamour coupled with (to a large degree) acceptance and comfort which eventually gave way to the now predictable sense of burden and malaise that, despite whatever computerized waterfalls and “aerophobia workshops” some airports provide, seem inevitable in the era of stupid shoe bomb attempts and drunks defecating in airplane aisles. (I do wonder if a study would show that the few airports that provide smoking lounges have a dramatically lower rates of passenger aggression than those that simply offer fern gardens and typically fourth-rate public “art”?) I guess, as 9/11 was something of an abrupt conclusion to an age of relative comfort, innocence, or flat-out denial (at least within the US), the seemingly truncated conclusion might be right on target.

My other, less significant critique is directed towards the title. Whereas “Naked Airport” is eye catching, it also implies some type of scandalous exposé or, at the very least, a peeling back of the proverbial onion layers of airport/airline history. I hardly think any of the content was previously classified or unpublished elsewhere, so the title seems a bit misleading. At any rate, this is a fine offering with many merits as a “page-turner.”

[Michael Matute · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and an easy read

Well researched with lots of footnotes and jumping off places. But it felt too much like a very well done term paper. Perhaps its the history itself, but the book felt rushed to finish at the end. Would benefit from an expanded section after the 1980's.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting look at how the perception of aviation over its history has affected the architecture and design of airports. I wish it had been written a few years later; the end just barely touches on post-2001 changes and new airports in Asia & the middle East.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slowly reading. Enjoyable cultural treatise on air travel and its surrounding architecture. Generally fascinated by this 'non-place' of transcience.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

unfinished - returned to library

[Sacha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting account of the history and evolution of airport design. Especially fun for someone who spends a lot of time in airports.