TWA's Flight Center - Eero Saarinen

The architectural model for TWA's Flight Center was designed by Eero Saarinen in the early 1960s. Note the TWA dimensional logo sign attached to the front entrance canopy -- an idea that was dropped before construction began on the futuristic complex at New York's JFK Airport. (Photo: Balthazar Korab, circa 1960; digital restoration by Modernist Collection)

The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City. The original terminal building, or head house, operated as a terminal from 1962 to 2001 and was adaptively repurposed in 2017 as part of the TWA Hotel. The head house is partially encircled by a replacement terminal building completed in 2008, and flanked by two buildings added for the hotel. The replacement terminal is home to JetBlue's JFK operations. The head house and terminal are collectively known as Terminal 5 or T5.


The TWA Flight Center was designed for Trans World Airlines by Eero Saarinen and Associates starting in 1956. It was erected between 1959 and 1962, and it operated as an air terminal until 2001. It has a prominent wing-shaped thin shell roof supported by four Y-shaped piers. An open three-level space with tall windows originally offered views of departing and arriving jets. Two tube-shaped red-carpeted departure-arrival corridors extended outward from the terminal, connecting to the gates; these would be demolished for the 2008 addition. Roche-Dinkeloo, a successor firm to Saarinen's company, designed an expansion in 1970. Its design received much critical acclaim; the interior and the exterior of the head house became New York City designated landmarks in 1994, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.


The encircling Terminal 5 addition, designed by Gensler, was built between 2005 and 2008. It consists of the 26 active gates at Terminal 5, as well as numerous restaurants and stores. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), which operates JFK Airport, had once intended the original structure as an entrance to the replacement terminal. That plan did not happen, and the TWA Hotel was instead constructed between 2015 and 2019; its development entailed renovating the disused head house and adding two adjacent buildings.

The head house of the TWA Flight Center, designed by Eero Saarinen and his associates, is a pioneering example of thin-shell construction, consisting of a reinforced concrete shell roof supported at the corners.[2] The design incorporates elements of the Futurist, Neo-futurist, Googie and Fantastic architectural styles.[3] It is located at the middle of a curve in one of JFK Airport's service roads, in front of the elevated AirTrain JFK people mover.[4] The key collaborators from the Saarinen office included Kevin Roche, Cesar Pelli, Norman Pettula, and Edward Saad. Warren Platner was largely responsible for the interiors.[5] To engineer the roof, Saarinen collaborated with Charles S. Whitney and Boyd G. Anderson of the firm Ammann & Whitney.[2][6][a] The general contractor was Grove Shepherd Wilson & Kruge. Arup was the structural engineer; Jaros, Baum & Bolles provided MEP engineering; and Langan was the civil engineer on the project.[7][8]


The Terminal 5 (also known as T5) addition, which is connected to the TWA Flight Center, is a 625,000-square-foot (58,100 m2) facility designed by Gensler. It contains 26 gates that can accommodate 250 flights per day,[9] and 20 million passengers annually

The form of the TWA Flight Center's head house is designed to relate to its small wedge-shaped site, with walkways and gates placed at acute angles.[11] Saarinen described the head house form as being like the "Leonardo da Vinci flying machine", according to his associate Kevin Roche.[12] Radiating out from the head house are two departure-arrival passenger tubes extending southeast and northeast.[13][b] The TWA Flight Center was one of the first to use enclosed passenger jetways, which extended from "gate structures" at the end of each tube. In the original plans, aircraft would be available via the "Flight Wing", a single-story building that passengers would have to walk to at ground level. The jetways removed the need for passengers to walk on the ground and sheltered passengers from inclement weather.[11][15][16]


The current JetBlue terminal and the TWA Hotel buildings are located east of the original head house. The terminal's entry hall is composed of two arms that wrap around the TWA Flight Center's head house in a crescent shape. The two passenger tubes from the original design were retained, but the original gate structures were destroyed.[17][18] T5 contains 26 gates.[9]

The TWA Flight Center's head house is a two-story structure.[4] The roof's thin concrete shell was designed to span a wide space using as little material as possible.[3] The roof is composed of four concrete shells: two upward-slanting shells at the edges, which resemble wings, and two smaller shells slanting downward toward the front and back of the structure.[19] The upward-slanting shells reach up to 75 feet (23 m) above ground level. The rooftop shells converge at the center, where each of the four shells supports the others. Four Y-shaped piers support the roof, facing the front and back;[4][13][20] these measure 51 feet (16 m) tall by 315 feet (96 m) long.[19] Skylights are placed within the gaps between each shell.[13][21] The building's main entrance is on the land side, where the roof projects over a sidewalk (formerly a driveway) with a scupper.[13][21]



The roof concrete varies in thickness from 7 inches (180 mm) at the edges to 40 inches (1,000 mm) at the convergence of the four shells. The roof weighs 6,000 short tons (5,400 t) in total.[22][23] The roof shells are cantilevered by up to 80 feet (24 m) and contain steel reinforcement to accommodate the roof's weight.[23] When the TWA Flight Center was erected, thin-shell concrete roofs could not be built in other parts of New York City; the roof could only be built because the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was exempt from New York City's building code.[24]
Facade



The main portion of the head house's facade is made of large green-tinted glass walls.[4][13] These glass walls were coated with a dark purple mylar film before 2005.[4] Single-story wings extend outward from the main terminal to the north and south and contain several door openings within the concave walls. Inside these wings are maintenance areas.[21]

Though the head house is two stories tall, it contains an intermediate level, joined to the lower level by a central staircase and to the upper level by four peripheral staircases.[25][26] Ceramic tiles line the walls and floors.[21][26] The TWA Flight Center incorporated many innovations upon its completion, including closed circuit television, a central public address system, baggage carousels, electromechanical split-flap display schedule board and baggage scales, and gates that were somewhat distant from the main terminal.[11][15][27][28] The intermediate level contains an area facing east, where passengers could originally see the tarmac.[29] By the early 1990s, to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a switchback ramp had been added between the lower level and the intermediate level.[30]



The ticket counter and baggage claim areas were placed at ground level, on the other side of the curbside canopy, to maximize convenience for passengers.[11] A sculpted marble information desk rose from the floor as a single slab.[21][14] There are also mechanical, service, and office areas in a partial basement under the intermediate level, as well as a tunnel that led to Flight Wing 1.[29]


A concrete balcony on the upper floor spans the central staircase from the lower floor to the intermediate level.[26][29] The TWA operated its Ambassador Club on the northern (left) portion of the upper floor.[26][31] Three restaurants were located on the southern (right) portion of the upper floor: the Constellation Club, Lisbon Lounge, and Paris Café.[32][26] There were also offices on the upper level, north and south of the public areas.[29]

Terminal 5 has a 55,000-square-foot (5,100 m2) retail area with 22 food and drink concessions, 35 stores,[9] free wireless Internet access, a children's play area, and a 1,500-space parking garage.[33][34] As the first airline terminal at JFK designed after the September 11, 2001, attacks,[35][36] T5 contains 20 security lanes, one of the largest checkpoints in a U.S. airline terminal.[37]


Two buildings, north and south of the newer T5 structure, encircle the original head house to the east. These buildings are part of the TWA Hotel, which has 512 guest rooms, 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) feet of meeting space, and an observation deck of 10,000 square feet (930 m2).[38][39][40] The hotel is outside the sterile area of Terminal 5, meaning that visitors can only access the hotel before going through T5 security or after arrival at T5.[33] The hotel's decorations, replicas of the original furnishings, include brass lighting, walnut-accented furnishings, and rotary phones. The hallways contain red carpeting, evocative of the color of the furniture in the original TWA lounge. The rooms also contain modern amenities such as blackout curtains and multiple-pane soundproof windows.[41][42]

The two passageways leading from the head house are completely enclosed and cross a service roadway that serves T5 and the TWA Hotel.[26][29] The passageway leading southeast was called Flight Tube 2, while the passageway leading northeast was called Flight Tube 1.[4] These tubes are covered in concrete, with an elliptical cross section as well as indirect lighting.[13] Original plans called for the passageways to be designed as bridges with glass ceilings; each passage would have two moving walkways, one in each direction, with a stationary hallway in between.[19] As a cost-saving measure, the passageways were ultimately not designed with moving walkways.[16]


The tubes originally led to Flight Wings 1 and 2. The passages were 6 feet (1.8 m) higher at the flight wings than at the head houses. Flight Tube 1 was about 232 feet (71 m) long while Flight Tube 2 was 272 feet (83 m) long.[29] Following the opening of the TWA Hotel, the tubes connect the head house to additional rooms in the hotel, as well as to T5.[43]

Flight Tube 2 connected to Flight Wing 2, from the 1962 Saarinen design, while Flight Tube 1 connected to Flight Wing 1, from a 1967–1970 expansion designed by successor firm Roche-Dinkeloo.[4][17] Both sections were characterized as being "violin"-shaped, with jetways extending outward from the end of each wing.[4] The flight wings had a base made of concrete and plaster, as well as a passenger concourse cantilevered above the base.[29]


Flight Wing 2, shaped like a multi-sided polygon, was the smaller of the two structures, with seven gates;[45] it contained utilitarian decor as well as a small flight operation center above the passenger area.[46][47] Two bridges led to departure lounges (labeled gates 39 and 42), which could both fit 100 passengers; these had a red-and-oyster color scheme with furnishings.[14][46] Flight Wing 1 was much larger than Flight Wing 2, having been built to accommodate Boeing 747 jumbo jets, and had 10 gates. Flight Wing 1 contained four levels, which served passengers, Federal Inspection Services, and operations; there were also baggage claim carousels in Flight Wing 1's basement, connected to the head house via people mover.[45] Both flight wings were demolished with the construction of T5 in the 2000s.[48]

New York International Airport, also known as Idlewild Airport, began construction in 1943 on the site of the Idlewild Beach Golf Course in southern Queens,[49] and had been operating since 1948 with a single terminal building and a control tower.[50][51] The following year, Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA) signed a lease with the Port of New York Authority (later the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, or PANYNJ), which operated Idlewild Airport.[52][53] TWA had begun flying internationally in 1946 from New York's LaGuardia Airport with flights to Paris, London, Rome, Athens, Cairo, Lisbon, and Madrid.[53][54] In 1950, as both a domestic and international carrier, the former Transcontinental and Western Airlines changed its name to Trans World Airlines.[55][54] By 1954, Idlewild had the highest volume of international air traffic of any airport globally.[50][56]

In 1955, the "Terminal City" master plan was developed for Idlewild Airport. All of the major airlines, including TWA, would build their own terminals, while smaller airlines would be served from an International Arrivals Building.[57][58][59] When the locations of each airline's terminal was announced, TWA and Pan Am were each assigned a spot on one side of the International Airlines Building.[53][60] TWA's hangar was on the opposite side of its assigned lot.[53] Under the leadership of TWA president Ralph S. Damon, TWA hired Eero Saarinen and his Detroit-based firm to design the TWA Flight Center.[53][61][62] Even though Saarinen's firm was simultaneously working on 15 other projects, he agreed to take the commission.[62] A writer for Interiors magazine described TWA as having "vision and confidence" for the project.

Eero Saarinen's wife Aline recalled that her husband saw most other air terminals as being ugly, shoddy, and inconvenient.[6][64] Saarinen wanted the new terminal to have a practical purpose and not only "interpret the sensation of flying",[65][66] but also "express the drama and specialness and excitement of travel".[67] Damon sought for "the spirit of flight" to be encapsulated in the design.[60] Saarinen's firm started researching other airports to collect data, and they also visited Grand Central Terminal, the United States' busiest railroad station, to observe passenger circulation patterns. The team found that passengers within Grand Central Terminal often traveled in curving paths, even though the terminal itself was rectangular.[62] TWA anticipated that at peak hours, the terminal would accommodate a thousand passengers, with two thousand departures and arrivals per hour.[6] Additionally, TWA needed fourteen positions at the terminal for large jets.[12][68][69]


The Saarinen team started devising designs for the terminal's form in February 1956.[12][69] Although the site assigned to TWA was not the airline's first choice for an Idlewild terminal, the design team took advantage of the site to design a highly visible terminal.[11] One of Saarinen's original designs was sketched on the back of a restaurant menu, when he and Aline were eating dinner with Time magazine's associate editor Cranston Jones.[70] Unhappy with initial designs, Saarinen asked TWA for more time and took an additional year to resolve the design.[3] Roche said that one initial design had called for an oval shell upon four piers, but that Saarinen had rejected that plan as awkward.[71][19] Furthermore, engineer Abba Tor had warned that a single slab of concrete might crack.[72]



Saarinen's team first created 3D models of the planned terminal, then drew sketches of the structure; this contrasted with the design processes of more traditional buildings, in which architects drew sketches before creating their 3D models.[67] Saarinen's team created several wire, cardboard, and clay models of the terminal's roof,[7][11][71] constructed at various scales.[19] One early model for the terminal was based on Jørn Utzon's winning proposal for the Sydney Opera House's architectural design competition, for which Saarinen had been one of the judges.[67] Saarinen had originally envisioned the roof as a single shell, but he refined the design twice before ultimately devising the plan with four shells.[73] The final model for the shell may have been inspired by one of Saarinen's breakfasts, a grapefruit that he pushed down at the center.[19][20][73] During another discussion, Roche used a saw to bisect one of the models, creating the inspiration for the roof's four shells.[19][20] In creating the TWA Flight Center's roof, Saarinen may also have been inspired by Minoru Yamasaki's design for St. Louis Lambert International Airport's main terminal, his father Eliel Saarinen's design for Helsinki Central Station; and McKim, Mead & White's design for the original New York Penn Station.[74]


The interior was modeled next; since the space was to be symmetrical, Saarinen's team only created drawings for half the interior.[19] Roche said the area around the center staircase was remodeled at least ten times.[75] In addition to around 130 possible plans created by the Saarinen office for the terminal, contractors provided hundreds of their own drawings. Cross-sections and contour maps were also devised. The drawings took some 5,500 man-hours to produce, and they were accurate to about 1⁄8 inch (3.2 mm).[7][19] Saarinen's team had devised 600 sketches of the building, but only 200 of these sketches were used in the final design.[8] The resulting plan was characterized as providing a "smooth and luxurious switch from ground transportation to planes".[12][60]

By November 1957, TWA had announced a design with a projected cost of $12 million (equivalent to $100 million in 2023).[11][68][76] Aline Saarinen worked with TWA to coordinate marketing activities centered on the terminal from the building announcement to its completion in 1962.[77] The plans were revised in 1958 after Saarinen's original design was determined to be too expensive.[78] Though both flight wings had been included in the original plan, only Flight Wing 2 was initially built as a cost-saving measure; the other wing was not completed until 1970.[16][79] The passageways were to have a glazed roof and moving walkways in the original plan, but these features were absent in the final construction, and two "arms" flanking the head house had been removed.[16]



Construction began in June 1959,[68][80] involving 14 engineers and 150 workers.[80] A grid was devised to manage the steel-pipe scaffolding at the construction site, and 5,500 supports were used in the scaffolding.[80][81][82][c] The contractors also prefabricated 27 different wedge shapes, creating 2,500 wedges in total.[19] Grove Shepherd Wilson & Kruge constructed the shells to the specifications outlined in Saarinen's contour maps, which were precise to intervals of 1 foot (0.30 m).[8][80][81] Although the project employed carpenters with "no special skill", the procedures were precise enough that they allowed for a maximum deviation of only 0.25 inches (6.4 mm) from the plan.[23][81] The roof was poured as a single form starting on August 31, 1960;[80][83] the work took 120 hours.[84] The Y-shaped piers required hundreds of additional drawings to fabricate.[19] By the middle of that year, the contractors were partially relying on computer calculations to complete the project.[8]


By the end of 1960, the roof was fully supported by the four Y-shaped piers, and the scaffolding was removed.[68][82] By April 1961, when only the concrete vaults had been completed, Saarinen remarked that "If anything happened and they had to stop work right now and just leave it in this state, I think it would make a beautiful ruin, like the Baths of Caracalla".[23][85] Saarinen died later that year while undergoing surgery.[86] His associates, principal designer Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo formed Roche-Dinkeloo, which worked to complete the building.[87]

By March 1962, the incomplete TWA terminal was being used by passengers to get to planes.[88][89] The unfinished terminal building was also used for a fundraising benefit that April.[90] The completed terminal was dedicated on May 28, 1962.[91][92][93] Most other major U.S. airlines had completed their Idlewild terminals sooner: after the opening of the International Arrivals Building in 1957, United Airlines and Eastern Air Lines opened their own terminals in 1959, followed by American Airlines and Pan American World Airways (Worldport) in 1960, and Northwest Airlines and TWA in 1962.[57][94] The National Airlines Sundrome would be last, in 1969.[94] The airport's name was changed to John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1963.[95] Despite being finished relatively late compared to other terminals at JFK Airport, the TWA Flight Center incorporated many novel features for its time, which influenced the design of other airport terminals.[27][28]



The terminal as completed had seven aircraft positions, six of which were available from Flight Wing 2; the other boarding position was available from a temporary structure attached to Flight Tube 1.[15][89] As with many terminals designed before the advent of jumbo jets, increased passenger traffic and security issues, the design proved difficult to update as air travel evolved; terminal gates close to the street made centralized ticketing and security checkpoints difficult.[32][96] International flights at JFK during the 1960s were routed through the International Arrivals Building, and the structure attached to Flight Tube 1 was functionally inadequate.[96] By 1967, TWA announced that it would build Flight Wing 1 on the northwest to accommodate wide-body aircraft, hiring Roche-Dinkeloo to design the $20 million expansion.[97][98] Work started in 1968,[96] and the concrete shell was finished by that December.[99] Flight Wing 1 opened on February 25, 1970,[100] but the wing was not dedicated until March 20, when international passengers could pass through the terminal directly.[101] With the addition of Flight Wing 1 came the expansion of the ticketing counter in the head house. The baggage handling area was expanded, and the new addition was connected to the basement of Flight Wing 1.[45]


By 1979, TWA had built a traffic island with a canopy to provide shelter for passengers waiting for ground transport.[102] The shelter, constructed by firm Witthoefft & Rudolf, won the Albert S. Bard Award for architectural excellence.[103] A wooden walkway, intended as a temporary structure, was built in the 1980s to connect to the Sundrome when TWA expanded its operations there. By 1992, the TWA Flight Center was in "tawdry condition", with parts of the structure appearing actively deteriorated.[104] The PANYNJ considered demolishing the building,[27][44] but the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) hosted public hearings in 1993 to determine whether to protect the TWA Flight Center,[105] and the LPC designated the terminal as an exterior and interior landmark in 1994.[27][44] Instead, the PANYNJ started considering plans for what would become the T5 expansion.[44] Elastomeric coating was added to the roof in 1999 to prevent leakage.[21]


TWA deteriorated financially during the 1990s, and after it eliminated many routes in 1996, moved most of its New York operations to the TWA Flight Center.[106] TWA eventually sold its assets to American Airlines in October 2001.[18] For three months, American Airlines still operated flights out of the TWA Flight Center.[107] American Airlines ceased flight operations at the terminal in December 2001 and allowed its lease inherited from TWA to expire in January 2002.[107][108] By then, airport officials saw the terminal as functionally outdated.[109] As a bi-state agency, the PANYNJ could legally bypass the LPC designation and demolish parts of the terminal.[109][110] Preservationists expressed concern over the fact that the terminal could be significantly modified.[111]
Abandonment and preservation
Departures board in the head house

After preservationists raised concerns, the PANYNJ proposed an alternative that would preserve the tubes and build a new structure east of the existing building. The PANYNJ still wished to destroy one or both of the flight wings.[109][110] By August 2001, the PANYNJ presented its first proposal, which entailed converting the head house into a restaurant or conference center, while encircling the existing building with one or possibly two new terminals. The concept received opposition from the Municipal Art Society (MAS), as well as architects Philip Johnson and Robert A.M. Stern.[112] The opposition suggested the building, which brought passengers into immediate view of the sky and aircraft beyond, would be "strangled" if wrapped by another terminal, and that wrapping the Saarinen head house with another terminal would not preserve the spirit of the building but would mummify it "like flies in amber."[112] Philip Johnson, speaking at the 2001 presentation, said of the proposal:

This building represents a new idea in 20th-century architecture, and yet we are willing to strangle it by enclosing it within another building. Imagine, tying a bird's wings up. This will make the building invisible. If you're going to strangle a building to death, you might as well tear it down.[112]

By late 2002, there was still no agreement on the usage of the TWA Flight Center, except that the head house and passageways would be preserved.[107] The following year, the PANYNJ and JetBlue agreed on a plan that would include reopening the TWA Flight Center and constructing a new 26-gate Terminal 5 behind the TWA Flight Center. At the time, JetBlue was operating out of the adjacent Terminal 6, the Sundrome, and was the airport's fastest growing carrier.[113] The PANYNJ and JetBlue came to an agreement on the construction of the new terminal itself in August 2004.[114]

In the time that the TWA Flight Center stood disused, it was utilized for brief events. Shortly after its closure, the head house was used for the filming of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can.[115] In 2004, the dormant head house briefly hosted an art exhibition called Terminal 5,[116] featuring the work of 19 artists from 10 countries.[32] The theme of the show featured work, lectures, and temporary installations drawing inspiration from the terminal's architecture; it was supposed to have run from October 1, 2004, to January 31, 2005.[32] The show closed abruptly after the building itself was vandalized during its opening gala.[117][118] The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.[1][18]

n December 2005, the PANYNJ began construction of the T5 facility behind and partially encircling Saarinen's head house.[18] Peripheral portions of the head house were demolished to make space for a larger 26-gate facility designed by Gensler.[9] Originally, there were also tentative plans to renovate one of the departure lounges, known as The Trumpet.[119] During the construction of T5, The Trumpet was lifted and moved 1,500 ft (460 m)[120] at a cost of $895,000,[119] only to be later demolished when the project's budget prioritized renovating the head house.[18] The head house was renovated to remove asbestos and replace deteriorated sections of the facility. The head house was planned to be used as an approach to the new T5 facility, and both buildings would be collectively known as Terminal 5.[121]



T5 reopened on October 22, 2008,[9][122] with JetBlue using an abstraction of the Saarinen terminal's gull-wing shape as the official logo for the event, an abstraction of the new terminal floor plan for the signage[18] and counting down the reopening via Twitter.[34] At the time of the T5 opening, JetBlue and PANYNJ had yet to complete renovation of the original Saarinen head house, and the building had stood empty while they decided what its future role should be. Early proposals included a conference center, an aviation museum, and a restaurant,[119] or a place to check in for flights departing from the newer JetBlue T5 building.[

In April 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that JetBlue and its partner, a hotel developer, were negotiating for the rights to turn the head house into a hotel.[124] Three months later, state governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed that the Saarinen building would become part of the TWA Hotel, a new on-site hotel for airport passengers.[125] After the hotel's development was announced, the historian Lori Walters used laser scanners to document the building's architecture.[126][127] Construction began in December 2016.[128] The structures on either side of the head house were demolished, though the head house was retained,[129] and additional structures were built.[130] During the head house's conversion into a hotel, many original details, such as the custom ceramic floor tiles and the 486 variously-shaped window panels, were replaced with replicas of the originals.[42][131] The departure board from the original construction was also restored. The hotel opened on May 15, 2019.[132]

WA had wanted a structure "represent[ing] a daring departure from conventional air terminal concepts".[28] Under TWA president Damon's guidance, Saarinen had designed the terminal as "a building that starts your flight with your first glimpse of it and increases your anticipation after you arrive".[53][61] As such, Saarinen had used similar design features on the interior and exterior.[111] He said, "We wanted passengers passing through the building to experience a fully-designed environment in which each part arises from another and everything belongs to the same formal world."[13

Shortly after the plans for the TWA Flight Center were announced in 1957, The New York Times described the plan as "hav[ing] a startling effect" for first-time visitors, but "not so revolutionary" inside.[134] Another newspaper said the TWA terminal was "planned to combine the functional realities of a jet-age air terminal with the aesthetic drama of flight".[135] Many contemporary media compared the terminal to "a bird in flight".[23][85] Architectural Forum (which praised the terminal) and Architectural Review (which criticized it) both characterized the design as a "concrete bird".[23] Saarinen said the building's resemblance to a bird was a coincidence,[23][85][136] despite privately describing the structure as a "Leonardo da Vinci flying machine".[136] The architect Robert Venturi said that Saarinen's designs evolved "from vocabulary rather than from function" and that, at the time, many of Saarinen's peers still adhered to the philosophy of form following function.[136]


Even when the TWA Flight Center was under construction, it was often discussed in the architectural media, and the Museum of Modern Art ran an exhibit on the building in 1959.[137] The completion of the terminal prompted a large amount of architectural commentary, most of it positive.[79][137] While the TWA terminal's design had several critics and skeptics, it was still described as being appropriate in the context of the Jet Age.[80][89] Architect Robert A. M. Stern called the head house a symbolic "Grand Central of the jet age".[138] Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture critic for The New York Times, saw the TWA Flight Center as a bright spot in the "mediocrity" of JFK Airport.[89][139] The interior was also praised. Critic Edgar Kaufmann Jr. in 1962 called the interior "one of the few major works of American architecture in recent years that reaches its full stature as an interior".[26][63][140] Ken Macrorie of The Reporter compared the tarmac-facing waiting room to a railroad hub's waiting area and alluded to the similarities with the city's original Pennsylvania Station.[14][141]


One major critic of the design was historian Vincent Scully, who disliked Saarinen's use of "whammo shapes" at the TWA Flight Center and Dulles International Airport.[23][79] British critic Reyner Banham questioned the practicality of the terminal's design, which did not clearly link "function and symbol", but he said that the TWA terminal was no worse than any other airport terminal.[79][142] Italian engineer and architect Pier Luigi Nervi was also skeptical of the design, saying that the structure was "too heavy and elaborate for the problem it seeks to solve".[79][143]

Adulation for the original design continued long after its completion.[140][144] Progressive Architecture magazine stated in 1992 that the terminal "represented a high point not only in the design of air terminals, but in the exercise of corporate responsibility".[104] Two years later, New York Times critic Herbert Muschamp called the TWA Flight Center "the most dynamically modeled space of its era".[145] In a 2005 book about Saarinen's work, Jayne Merkel said "the building did for TWA what the Saint Louis Arch [...] would eventually do for Saint Louis".[60] According to Merkel, it was not until the Port Authority proposed demolishing the terminal for T5 that "the full impact of the building was revealed".[137] After the TWA Hotel conversion was complete, Australian Design Review wrote: "The interior curves, cantilevers and spacious mezzanines have stood the test of time."[146]


When the newer T5 was announced in 2005, JFK Airport's vice president of redevelopment described the planned structure as "a very practical, very efficient building".[17] T5 was also described as "hyper-efficient"[35] and a "monument to human throughput",[123] and a reviewer said T5 "might be the [...] best" terminal at JFK Airport.

When the terminal was completed, it received numerous accolades and awards, including from the Queens Center of Commerce[147] and the New York Concrete Industrial Board.[148] Architectural Forum included the TWA Flight Center and the Pepsi-Cola Building as part of a 1962 exhibition of ten of the "world's most significant modern buildings".[149] The American Institute of Architects gave the terminal an Award of Merit in 1963, and it was featured in magazines printed internationally.[80] In addition, Saarinen won the AIA Gold Medal posthumously in 1962.[150]


The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission held public hearings on the possibility of designating the TWA Flight Center's exterior and interior as official city landmarks in 1993.[151][152] The head house's exterior and interior were designated as landmarks on July 19, 1994,[13][27][153] though the exterior designation excluded the gate structure attached to the northeastern tube.[154] The Municipal Art Society nominated the facility for inclusion on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of the 11 Most Endangered Places in America in 2004, after the terminal's closure.[116] On September 7, 2005, the National Park Service listed the TWA Flight Center on the National Register of Historic Places.[18][1] The American Institute of Architects' 2007 survey List of America's Favorite Architecture ranked the TWA Flight Center among the top 150 buildings in the United States.

https://www.archdaily.com/788012/ad-classics-twa-flight-center-eero-saarinen
This article was originally published on June 16, 2016. To read the stories behind other celebrated architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.

Built in the early days of airline travel, the TWA Terminal is a concrete symbol of the rapid technological transformations which were fueled by the outset of the Second World War. Eero Saarinen sought to capture the sensation of flight in all aspects of the building, from a fluid and open interior, to the wing-like concrete shell of the roof. At TWA’s behest, Saarinen designed more than a functional terminal; he designed a monument to the airline and to aviation itself.

Though airplanes had existed since the early 1900’s, it was not until after the Second World War that commercial air travel started to become commonplace. Trans World Airlines was a key player in this development: by allowing customers to purchase flights in discounted packages and offering extended payment plans, the airline took an expensive luxury option and made it accessible to America’s burgeoning middle class. In some cases, their price reductions made travel by airplane cheaper than that by train.[

With air travel on the rise, the Port of New York Authority instituted a plan to expand Idlewild Airport (today’s John F. Kennedy Airport) in 1954. The plan, which would allow the airport to handle the massively increased air traffic in and out of New York City, called for each major airline to design, construct, and operate its own independent terminal, a scheme dubbed “Terminal City.” This arrangement was made at the urging of the airlines themselves, who saw it as an opportunity to forge lasting brand identities for themselves in the new terminals they would build – regardless of the spatial and aesthetic disarray it would ultimately foment.[2]

TWA approached Eero Saarinen with the project in 1955. Tellingly, the decision was made by the artistic director of the public relations department – a clear sign of the terminal’s role in advertising the airline. This mandate was even made official in the company’s project commission, which called for efficient ground operations infrastructure that would “provide TWA with advertising, publicity and attention.”[3] Saarinen took the airline’s emphasis on public attention to heart from the beginning, capitalizing on a site that sat at the apex of the airport’s main access road.[4]

With the site chosen, Saarinen began to develop a design that would take full advantage of its prominence within Idlewild. He ultimately proposed a symmetrical arrangement of four curved, concrete shell roof segments, the curves of which flowed seamlessly from the piers that supported them. Each of the four roof structures was separated from its neighbors by narrow skylights, with a circular pendant occupying the centerpoint in which all four meet.[5]



Precisely where Saarinen found inspiration for the form of the terminal remains a matter of speculation. In keeping with the building’s role as the architectural face of TWA, many have noted its resemblance to bird or an airplane in flight; the dynamic upturn of its roof line certainly seems to suggest as much. There is, however, an apocryphal story that suggests Saarinen’s true inspiration was found not in aviation, but in the hollowed-out rind of a grapefruit he pressed down in the middle. Whether the story is true or not, Saarinen never claimed that his design was meant to represent anything physical; it was, he insisted, an abstraction of the idea of flight itself.[6]


The fluidity of the terminal’s exterior was carried faithfully through its interior, as well. The vaulting of the roof shell allowed for a spacious and free-flowing interior layout, almost entirely devoid of spatial boundaries. Every element, whether structural or circulatory, was carried out in this fashion; staircases all curved, and even the columns supporting upper walkways were seamlessly melded into both the ground and the ceilings. Visitors entered the space under a cantilevered marquee, progressing from the ticketing spaces at ground level to the restaurants and meeting rooms above. A sunken waiting area offered a view of airport operations through its immense window, while; two tubular corridors led off toward the boarding gates.[7]

Even before opening to the public, the TWA Terminal attracted a great deal of attention – and not all of it positive. The press was decidedly enthusiastic about Saarinen’s design, heaping acclaim on the building’s dynamic form and fluid interior; the terminal was such a powerful symbol for the airline that even as its budget ballooned from $9 million to $15 million, TWA never enforced cutbacks on the project.[8]

However, while the general public was quite taken with TWA’s new architectural icon, the dogmatic nature of mid-century architectural practice opened Saarinen to scathing critique by some of his peers. His concrete shell, while eminently expressive, was structurally inefficient and required a great deal of hidden steel support; more damning, however, was the architect’s association with corporations and government institutions. He was derided by critics for tailoring his architectural style to the job, instead of tailoring the project to his style. The TWA Terminal, differing greatly from his previous Miesian, rectilinear works and with an interior finished in TWA’s livery of crimson and white, was seen as an unholy marriage of the architect’s two greatest perceived failings.[9]

Despite these criticisms, the TWA Terminal opened to great acclaim in 1962. Saarinen had passed away in 1961, having only seen the superstructure of the building completed. While the terminal established itself as a symbol of the jet age, 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 forebears.[10]


Despite upgrades, the terminal was never truly able to catch up as jet airliners grew in size and number; it eventually closed its doors in 2001, its future uncertain. Fortunately, its survival was ensured by its placement on the United States National Registers of Historic Places in 2005, and more recently by the announcement that the former terminal will be renovated to serve as an airport hotel.[11] In this guise, the TWA Terminal will continue to stand as an icon not only of flight, but of the heady postwar era in which it was conceived.