As ugly as an airport...
Oct 5, 2023, 5:11 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Virginia City Highlands
Programs: Nothing anymore after 20 years
Posts: 6,900
As ugly as an airport...
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "as pretty as an airport".
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only exception of this otherwise infallible rule) and the architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve jangling colours, to make effortless the business of separating the traveller from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of the Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
I'll start - LAX.
Last edited by invisible; Oct 5, 2023 at 5:28 pm
Oct 6, 2023, 11:47 am
#4
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 6,752
For me, PHL, LAX & JFK. I hate them all, just horrible. Construction and reliance on busses just add insult to injury. I guess, if you stuck a gun to my head and said pick one, it'd be LAX. Even during my earliest memories, I just don't understand the concept of designing an airport in a bunch of independent separated terminals in a way where traffic congestion is sure as death and taxes.
Oct 6, 2023, 3:10 pm
#8
Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: The shape-shifting urban sprawl that is El Lay. FT member #71.
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Posts: 4,690
I'll do a partial defense of LAX. There are few terminals in the US that are as nice inside as LA's Bradley International facility.
Oct 6, 2023, 3:51 pm
#10
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Wesley Chapel, FL
Programs: American Airlines
Posts: 30,038
LAX....what a dump. Why is it when I leave an AA plane there I really don't know where I'm going through a maze of tunnels only to come out back on the concourse, back down again, and through a maze of tunnels that look old and beat up.
oh...and what GENIUS designed a world wide airport with a U shape that traps all traffic to a standstill. That might work in Biloxi, MS but not Los Angeles. DFW is an engineering dream logistically speaking.
oh...and what GENIUS designed a world wide airport with a U shape that traps all traffic to a standstill. That might work in Biloxi, MS but not Los Angeles. DFW is an engineering dream logistically speaking.
Oct 6, 2023, 4:16 pm
#11
Join Date: Apr 2023
Posts: 76
LAX....what a dump. Why is it when I leave an AA plane there I really don't know where I'm going through a maze of tunnels only to come out back on the concourse, back down again, and through a maze of tunnels that look old and beat up.
oh...and what GENIUS designed a world wide airport with a U shape that traps all traffic to a standstill. That might work in Biloxi, MS but not Los Angeles. DFW is an engineering dream logistically speaking.
oh...and what GENIUS designed a world wide airport with a U shape that traps all traffic to a standstill. That might work in Biloxi, MS but not Los Angeles. DFW is an engineering dream logistically speaking.
Oct 6, 2023, 4:35 pm
#12
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 1999
Programs: FB Silver going for Gold
Posts: 21,810
Similarly JFK was built when airlines had their own terminal. PanAm World Port might have been great in its time but was soon obsolete.
Other space-age but didn't age too well. Original CDG (T1).
I'm sure LAX may want to do a fresh sheet design but it's kind of difficult unless you can built a new terminal somewhere else (e.g., DTW and PIT).
As for terminal buildings expanded in a cobbled-together fashion, have a look at the results at YYC and YUL.
