The Art Of The Airport

Three quarters of a million people are in a plane somewhere right now. Many millions travel by air each day. For most of us, the experience of being in an airport is to be endured rather than appreciated, with little thought for the quality of the architecture. No matter how hard even the world's best architects have tried, it is difficult to make a beautiful airport. And yet such places do exist. Cathedrals of the jet age that offer something of the transcendence of flight even in an era of mass travel and budget fares. Here are twenty-one of the most beautiful airports in the world. The book features: Wellington International Airport, 'The Rock' shaped like the dangerous cliffs of a local legend Kansai International Airport, Renzo Piano's gigantic project built on three mountains of landfill Shenzhen International Airport, a manta ray shaped terminal putting this booming region on the map Daocheng Yading Airport, the world's highest civilian airport in the middle of the Tibetan mountains Chhatrapati Shijavi International Airport, rising from the slums of Mumbai like a Mogul palace Queen Tamar Airport, a playfully iconic modern airport nestled in the mountains of Georgia King Abdulaziz International Airport, the gateway to Mecca resembling a Bedouin city of tents Pulkovo Airport, mirroring the city of St Petersburg with bridges, squares and art Berlin-Tegel Airport, ultramodernity, 1970s style Copenhagen Airport, an icon from the golden age of air travel Franz Josef Strauß Airport, sober and easy to negotiate, Munich's model airport Paris Charles du Gaulle Airport, the brutalist icon that launched the career of airport architect Paul Andreu London Stansted Airport, Norman Foster's return to the golden age of air travel Lleida-Alguaire Airport, a relic of Catalonia's early 21st century building boom Madrid-Barajas Airport, Richard Rogers and Antonio Lamela's calm, bamboo-panelled Terminal 4 Marrakesh Ménara Airport, a blend of 21st century construction and traditional Morrocan design Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro's modernist masterpiece Carrasco International Airport, Rafael Viñoly's design inspired by the sand dunes of his native Uruguay Malvinas Argentinas International Airport, echoing the mountains and glaciers of Tierra del Fuego John F Kennedy International Airport, Eero Saarinen's glamorous jet-age TWA terminal Spaceport America, a vision of the future in the New Mexico desert

Art of the Airport Tower is a photographic journey to airports in the U.S. and around the world. This book, the companion volume to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum exhibition of the same name, explores 85 historic and contemporary airport towers through more than 100 fine art photographs by Carolyn Russo. Russo's photography makes these ordinary structures extraordinary: more than mere aviation artifacts, they are monumental abstractions, symbols of cultural expression, and testimonies of technological change. The first impression travelers have when they reach a new city or country may well be the tower; as such, it is often an embodiment of important symbols and values. For example, at the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport in Sweden, two lookout points perch like birds at the top of the control tower in reference to two protective ravens from Nordic mythology. The Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in China features wavy structures designed to look like scrolls of silk delicately sheltering passengers below. Russo's striking photographs capture these features, and informative captions describe their architectural, cultural, and technological significance. An introduction by Smithsonian commercial aviation expert F. Robert van der Linden tells the history of airport towers to contextualize Russo's work. Art of the Airport Tower is a stunning book that brings a heightened awareness to the architectural beauty and historical significance of these structures.

The bestselling author of The Architecture of Happiness and The Art of Travel spends a week at an airport in a wittily intriguing meditation on the "non-place" that he believes is the centre of our civilization. In the summer of 2009, Alain de Botton was invited by the owners of Heathrow airport to become their first ever writer-in-residence. Given unprecedented, unrestricted access to wander around one of the world's busiest airports, he met travellers from all over the globe, and spoke with everyone from baggage handlers to pilots, and senior executives to the airport chaplain. Based on these conversations he has produced this extraordinary meditation on the nature of travel, work, relationships, and our daily lives. Working with the renowned documentary photographer Richard Baker, he explores the magical and the mundane, and the interactions of travellers and workers all over this familiar but mysterious "non-place," which by definition we are eager to leave. Taking the reader through departures, "air-side," and the arrivals hall, de Botton shows with his usual combination of wit and wisdom that spending time in an airport can be more revealing than we might think.

A spectacular overview of one of the most highly acclaimed art collections on the West Coast, which greets travelers at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) as they journey between land, sea, and sky. The airport which is known for its modern design and expansive topography, offers an impressive visual display of award-winning art and architecture. Each terminal building represents the culture heritage, natural beauty, and iconic experiences that embody British Columbia, and the artwork exhibited throughout plays an integral role in telling those stories. Revered in particular for its focus on Pacific Coast Native art, the collection is presented in the thematic groupings of land, sea, and sky—three realms that intersect at YVR. In A Sense of Place, art historian and critic Robin Laurence will examine the commissioning of dozens of striking artworks as a response to the airport’s overall architectural and design plan, and particularly as a reflection of the cultural heritage and natural environment identified with the province of British Columbia. Among the highlights of the collection are monumental sculptures by leading Northwest Coast First Nations artists including Susan A. Point (Coast Salish), Robert Davidson (Haida), Dempsey Bob (Tahltan-Tlingit), Richard Hunt (Kwakwaka’wakw), Lyle Wilson (Haisla), Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth), Connie Watts (Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka’wakw and Gitxsan), and the late Bill Reid, famed for The Spirit of Haida Gwaii: The Jade Canoe. Their art both welcomes and bids farewell to the millions of travellers who make their way through YVR each year.

Follow a family and the youngest member's favorite sock monkey through all the inner and outer workings of an airport. In a book that is as intriguing as it is useful and entertaining, we follow a family on its way through the complexities of a modern-day airport. From checking bags and watching them disappear on the mysterious conveyor belt, to security clearance and a seemingly endless wait at the gate to finally being airborne. But wait! There's more! The youngest family member's sock monkey has gone missing. Follow it at the bottom of the page as it makes a journey as memorable as that of the humans above.

Illustrates the daily activities at an airport, including a rock star arrival, a flight delay, and a thunderstorm.

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, travel, style, and even the way cities are built and business is done. Gordon introduces the people who shaped this place of sudden transportation: 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.

"Airport Love Theme is a graphic novel set on two airplanes and in detention at Los Angeles LAX airport, recalling the absurd exchanges - about love and sex, celebrity, food and family - that once took place between US border security officers, an artist held and interrogated under suspicion while travelling to an art fair, and fellow passenger-detainees. Farah's debut book explores the promise of mobility offered by the international art world, and how that promise can fail outrageously. Suspense and disorientation play out in subtle ways, encouraging self-questioning on the part of readers given joint responsibility for making sense of troubling events. The novel's structure is linear, but also echoes the tendency of traumatic experience to produce indelible scenes that repeat and return"--Publisher's website