Airport Builders

Airports are too often a necessary evil of long-distance travel. But at their best, they are to our era what the great urban railway stations were to theirs: grand, naturally lit spaces where architecture and bold structural engineering merge to create an uplifting experience that transcends mere functional accommodation. Some readers may have experienced some of these choice buildings while in transit: Helmut Jahn's terminals at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, Renzo Piano's sensuously undulating Kansai Airport near Osaka, Curt Fentress's tent-topped Denver terminal, Norman Foster's space-framed Stansted Airport serving London, or Cesar Pelli's soaring, art-filled Washington National Airport. Those who haven't can do some armchair traveling with this book.

Practitioners and students will find functional analysis as well as visual stimulus. While not a how-to book, Airport Builders goes beyond esthetics to deal with issues of organization, use, and structure. It opens with an essay examining new design directions (but not the full history of this 70-year-old building type), and then presents a portfolio of 46 architecturally advanced air terminals built in or designed for 17 countries over the last decade or so. The book is oversized, and its 230 pages contain several hundred illustrations in the form of well-reproduced color photos, architectural drawings, and models. --John Pastier