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

Today the world is linked by a complex system of air transport that was unimaginable a century ago. The foundation of the system is the modern airport. This fascinating book describes the chaotic birth and growth of commercial aviation as reflected in airport design and construction past and present.

This short book is a fascinating history of airport architecture. It is well presented--I used it in a freshman-level class on the aviation system--and the timeline makes it easy to relate to other cultural developments in society and technological developments in aviation. For anyone over 50, it's also a bit nostalgic--airports sure aren't what they used to be.

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.

As a frequent traveler and architecture aficianado, I have always been fascinated with airports--their structure, symbolism, meaning. This book is an engaging and entertaining look into an often overlooked (but very important) element of our built environment. It reads quickly and and is very enjoyable.

The best general book on airport design with amusing anecdotes and smart analysis.

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.

Excellent achievement in data gathering with admirable lucidity. Witty and illuminating!

Great book, good seller!

Amazing book. Read it at my girlfriend's place and then bought two of them. One as a present to a fellow architect who was moving to another city and one for me not wanting to risk loosing access to it in case it didn't work out between me and my miss. Yep...now at least I have the book. This review got a bit personal...

Fair

The aviation part is dubious at best, but the architectural side is quite good.