Questionings about the TWA Terminal
The terminal, while being an impressive architectural master piece,
was really questioned due to its real functional use as a modern
airport.
The terminal established itself as a symbol of the jet age, however
it was ironically ill-suited to servicing jet airliners.
Its design was largely completed before 1958, when the first viable
jet airliners began to supplant their propeller-driven ancestors.
Martin 404. Propels airplane used by the airline with
capacity only for 40 people.
Despite upgrades done in the design, the terminal was never truly
able to catch up as jet airliners grew in size, number and capacity.
Besides, as a result of the new jets, the airport needed a better
noise insulation and wider turning circles, something that was not
taken into account in the design.
Newly introduced Jets, Boing 707. This aircraft was
bigger in size and had capacity for 143 people.
The increment in the capacity of airplanes also brought some
problems for the airport:
The terminal was officially open in 1962 and it was designed to
accommodate 1000 people per hour at its peak time.
However, the entire airport’s traffic between 1955 and 1962 when
the terminal was officially open was more than triple, escalating
from 3.65 million to 11.5 million.
The result of the increment of travelers, the recently introduced
jets, and the new automatized system to transport luggage forced
the TWA terminal to reinvent itself to accommodate new
requirements after just a few years of construction.
Comparison to scale between the TWA terminal and the Jet Blue’s terminal that
show how TWA terminal became obsolete as a result of its small capacity.
Comparison to between the TWA terminal’s lobby and the Jet Blue’s terminal’s lobby.
The design done by Saarinen elicit many criticism by some of his
peer and critics.
It was widely know that the design moved from the idea to the
model, and then to technical drawings that Saarinen completed
only after the final form emerged as a result of an intense
modeling process. This unconventional process didn’t follow the
methodological process of sketches, conceptual drawings , models
and then blueprints.
This method of design provoke many criticism by the modernists of
the time who perceived the project as a profane invention of
modernism’s “form follows function” mantra.
Critics also stated that the use of concrete shell was structurally
inefficient and required an excessive amount of hidden steel
support to reinforce the structure.
Besides, The architecture community questioned Saarinen and his
intentions to develop a design so obviously in the service of
corporate power that was seen as a hollow exhibitionism.
Conclusion
Even when the TWA Terminal is a symbol and a landmark of
modern architecture, the building had some negative aspects that
couldn’t be solved in the conception of the project.
Despite of being a new terminal, the fast development in the
aviation industry was the main factor that questioned the function
of the building and its capacity for handling large crowds of people.
The new airplane brought new loud turbines jets that were a lot
noisier than the propeller-driven airplanes. However the Terminal
had not been acoustically insulated.
Finally, the design process was in a way questioned by the
modernist architecture community of the time.
Works Cited
Landmark Preservation Commition, July 19, 1994, Designation List 256 LP-1915
“UP AND AWAY AT JFK” WRITTEN BY EDITOR CYNTHIA DAVIDSON, PUBLISHED IN LOG 46, SUMMER
2019.
The Seductive Fantasy of Saarinen's TWA Terminal.
Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal, Princeton Arch Press.
“Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center,” Architectural Record (July 1962): 129.