The phone rang at Eero Saarinen and Associates one morning, and I could overhear my wife, Aline, trying to book me into a meeting with someone. I tried to explain that I was busy with the Gateway Arch project but she insisted I needed to meet the Trans World Flight Center president, Randy, tomorrow. As I’m approaching the John F Kennedy International Airport, all I can think of is my thirteen year old self immigrating to this beautiful country from Finland with my mother and father.
During the meeting, Randy proposed that I design the TWA Flight Center as a terminal in the airport to host thousands of travelers daily. As a renowned architect, Randy was counting on me to bring a winning design to the table. Other airport terminals had a lack of beauty and overall convenience. I wanted this structure to be able to interpret the sensation as if you were flying through the sky. My design team began handing me ideas but I rejected them as they were not functional and just plain. That evening, my son was playing on the street with kids from our neighborhood, when one boy threw a paper airplane. It was as if a lightbulb was shining above my head, and I instantly grabbed my sketchbook to begin scribbling my idea.
My favorite element of the design is the most obvious when you first look at it, the concrete-shell roof. The roof looks like a hang glider soaring through the sky. The downward pointing “nose” of the structure gives the illusion that it is coming right at you. The upward pointing “wings” of the structure represents motion and the unequivocal feeling of elevation. I wanted to take a futuristic approach when I added skylights within the gaps between each wing. To make the design functional, I made the green-tinted glass walls concave onto the shape of each wing. There are three levels, the bottom level where passengers come in through the front entrance, the intermediate that extends to the inside of the airport, and the upper level where the passengers are able to dine before or after their flight. The levels are connected by a central staircase as well as wide staircases around the perimeter of the intermediate and upper level. The piece that brings everything together inside the terminal is a sphere hanging in the middle that shows several clocks that are visible from any side.
This is one of the biggest structures I have designed and the only thing I could wish for was that my father, Eliel, was still alive to see it. As a fellow architect himself, I think my father would have been proud to see not only how beautiful it turned out, but also how many people use it every day. My father taught me at a young age that an architect’s goal is not only to fabricate a piece that looks different from others but to also be practical and useful. I have always tried to implicate this, especially with my tulip and womb chair designs. Now, if only I could convince any of my children to become an architect to continue the family legacy.
Comentarios