Naked airport cultural history of the world's most revolutionary structure
Alastair Gordon.
- New York Metropolitan Books, H. Holt 2004.
- xi, 305 p. ill., maps 25 cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-289) and index.
Prototypes : 1924-1930 -- Naked airport : 1930-1940 -- New deal : 1933-1941 -- Air power : 1939-1957 -- Jet-land : 1957-1970 -- The sterile concourse : 1970-2000 -- Epilogue : from Lindbergh to bin Laden. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
"Since its origins in the muddy fields of flying machines, the airport has become one of the defining institutions of modern life. In Naked Airport, acclaimed critic Alastair Gordon traces the structure's history and architecture and explores its far-reaching effect on our culture." "From global politics to action movies to the daily commute, Gordon shows how the airport has changed our sense of time, distance, and style, and ultimately the way cities are built and business ins done. He introduces the people who shaped and were shaped by this place of sudden transition: pilots like Charles Lindbergh, architects like Eero Saarinen, politicians like Fiorello La Guardia and Adolf Hitler, who built Berlin's Tempelhof as a showcase for Nazi power. Gordon describes the airport's futuristic contributions, such as twenty-four-hour surveillance systems and 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 international terror."--BOOK JACKET.