disobedience

The belief in mastering the world through technology regained renewed importance in the 1960s in the western world. The ideological, technology-based competition between the United States and the Soviet Union manifested itself in the space race and the successful placing of man on the moon in 1969. Bignessthe means to affirm ideological supremacy over competing political systemswas a main mechanism to support the idea of sublimeness. The late 1960s were thus characterized by a new scale of technological developments on unprecedented levels of scale. In architecture this mindset became evident in high-rise developments like the Sears Tower or the World Trade Center, projects up to this day unmatched in scale and mass. Was Nasas Apollo program and its moon rocket, the Saturn Valso unrivaled in its scale to datethe astronautical incarnation of the nations expansion wishes, Boeings introduction of the widebody jet, the 747, served the aeronautical status symbol desires. Whereas space flights were elitists in nature, the Jumbo Jet had a enormous impact on the travel behavior of the masses. Its shift in scale made possible the transport of more passengers and goods over longer non-stop distances at reduced travel times and lower overall costs and consequently led to a new valuation of distance and reachability. first flight of Boeing 747, 1969 start of Apollo 11, 1969 Sears Tower, Chicago, 1974

The concept of the Boeing 747 not only acted as a time and space continuum distorter, but also entailed major expansions of airport grounds and facilities to accommodate an airplane this size. While new gangways and dispatch facilities could be considered small interventions, the elongation of runways and the subsequently increasing amounts of flights resulted in protests in the adjacent neighborhoods of the airports.

As expansion plans of airport authorities intensified, public resentment increased and eventually prompted riots and civil disobedience around the world (e.g.: Frankfurt Startbahn West, Narita - Tokyo).

The politically imposed night-flight restrictions and land use limitations that were enforced in the 1970s in response to these developments led to the desire of relocating the concept of the airport into areas that were further remote from the city and thus less likely to be subject to controversy. Examples for this undertaking can especially be found in the 1980s and 1990s when the formation of a public environmental conscious made airport extensions in existing locations an almost impossible task (e.g. Dulles, Denver, Berlin, Munich, Kai Tak/Chep Lap Kok, Kansai, Schipol).

This striving for territorial and functional autonomy eventually not only fostered the physical detachment of the airport from its associated city but incrementally also its independence and sovereignty from the mother-city.

The released and loosened connection between both entities was further reinforced when European airports were linked to high-speed railway lines (first example is Lyon Satolas as an expressionist prototype of this new typology of transportation building in 1989), because now it became possible to link these airport/rail terminals to the counterparts of this new species in other cities. Hence it became possible to relate a distinct part of the available rail connections between urban agglomerations to these airport/rail terminals instead of linking them to the city-centeras they did traditionally since the beginning of railroad transport. The connection to high-speed rail links has already become a necessity for airport makeovers, especially in Europe (after Lyon: Frankfurt, CDGRoissy, Cologne). For the future this collaboration between air and rail will become even more crucial in assuring smooth travel chains. Since hubs for airlines (such as Atlanta for Delta Airlines or Chicago for United Airlines) change the relationship of city and airport because the travelers appreciation and perception of the airport (or the city) is drastically limited by its remoteness, the air/rail connection must also have an influence on the traditional city concept.

With increasing amounts of facilities and amenities, the modern airport is becoming a city in itself, not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms. Although this emulation of city is a very generic (and global) one, the simulation of city life by the introduction of city specificand previously airport extrinsicprograms combining economical, cultural, and even recreational activities generates a new form of urbanity, one that is a product of the global life- and travel behaviors of todays society based on the extended desire of mobility and movement. The contemporary concept of the airport thus has the potential to transform the morphology and definition of the cityjust like the automobile did in the last century.

Today the airport has become a holistic entity, a technical organism that present itself as a global polycentric network of interconnected hubs and nodes around the world. It might be the closest physical manifestation to the structure of our digital and virtual realms. The airportinitially conceived as a machine serving another machinegrew from a mere utility for aviation to a global instrument and finally a surrogate for the city (?)

Chicago O hare

Demonstration at the Startbahn West, Airport Frankfurt, 1981

Chicago Midway, 1995 proposed airport in Lake Michigan, 1969

City of Denver (white) Denver International Airport (black)

Lyon Satolas (TGV station), 1989 office complex, CDG-Airport, Paris airport density in central/eastern US rendering of Airbus A 380

bigness (2)?
Thinking back to the Boeing 747, all of these developments were triggered by the logic of the passenger jet and its change of form as an activating and propelling force. Understanding the Jumbo Jet as a major underlying dynamism for airport expansions in the last decades, the world of aviation could stand again on a new threshold of bigness with the introduction of the Airbus A 380 in 2006, which will mark another leap in airplane construction a good thirty years after the Boeing 747.

detachment

dislocation

expansion

autonomy

emulation

bigness

linking