Eero Saarinen wanted to capture the sensation of flight in poured concrete. He did. The TWA Flight Center at Idlewild Airport-later renamed JFK-opened its doors in 1962. It looked like a giant concrete bird landing on the tarmac. Think about the engineering behind it. Workers poured ten million pounds of concrete into four massive vaults. These shells met at a central point without any supporting pillars blocking the view inside. It was breathtakingly bold. Sadly, Saarinen died of a brain tumor a year before the 1962 opening. He was only 51. Passengers stepped out of cabs and entered a futuristic dream of curved stairs and crimson carpets. Those iconic split-flap Solari boards clicked in the background. Pure theater.
The building had a major flaw. Saarinen designed it for propeller planes and early narrow-body jets. Then came the Boeing 747. Suddenly, thousands of passengers flooded the terminal at once. The intimate baggage carousels jammed up. The narrow jet bridges couldn't handle the massive double-decker planes. TWA tried to adapt, but the building just could not scale up. By the time TWA went belly-up in 2001, the terminal sat empty and decaying. Scrappy preservationists fought hard to save it from the wrecking ball. They won. Developers spent $268 million restoring Saarinen's masterpiece, eventually reopening it in 2019 as the centerpiece of a retro hotel. Now, guests sip martinis in the Sunken Lounge where Beatles fans once screamed.
- T Walker
What Makes Trans World Airlines Flight Center Special:
