Airport architecture

[Paul Clerkin]

Erkki, thanks for showing us that. I like it. Whats the interior like? Original? Or redesigned since the building was completed.

[Erkki Mikola]

The interior is almost like original. However the check-in counter and baggage and baggage weigh and handling desk are removed. The restaurant on second floor is still in same place as originally. There are fine sceneries from it to the airfield.
Air control tower was modernized in 1960ies.
The picture from inside the main hall you can find from http://www.tky.hut.fi/~pik/Malmi/malmi-e.htm
http://www.tky.hut.fi/~pik/Malmi/interior.jpg
It is actually made of 2 pictures to show the interior in wide angle. There is roud sofa in the middle, where originally was a big palm tree. I hope, that it could be restored.

[Erkki Mikola]

Here is some more specific info about the designers of Helsinki-Malmi Airport (from Aino Niskanen)
"I think, that it is best to name Dag Englund and Vera Rosendahl / Finnish National Board of Building as designers (I would omit to mention Doris Englund in this context)

As example how difficult it is to specify the designers of the airport let's take the administration building (=main building, 1938):
In the newspapers then was told the designer to be Väinö Vähäkallio (chief officer of the Building Board)

"Architect"-magazine tells that main designer was Building Board assisted by Dag Englund and Vera Rosendahl.

Work list of Building Board does not name the designers and Salme Setälä describes that
Onni Ermala "took care of the work" in the Building Board. Propably he made the detailed drawings and supervised the actual building work.

[RSJ]

Anyone out there know the architects of the new Athens Sparta airport?

[Paul Clerkin]

This one? Greece Public Works Ministry??
http://www.greece.gr/TRAVEL/Traveltips/athensairportinaugurated.stm

Press releases for 2001 from official site - you may find a mention of the architects somewhere or email them...
http://www.aia.gr/en/general_information/media_center/press_releases/2001/body.shtm

[trace]

http://pelastamalmi.org/en/petition/sign.html

[Paul Clerkin]

Originally posted by Paul Clerkin
I think you have to experience an airport rather than looking at it in a book / magazine / television which doesnt really allow me to comment. However I really enjoyed Stansted when it first opened, spent a day in it taking photographs back in early 1992 and it was churchlike.

Finally decided to spend an afternoon scanning the images... unfortunetly the text that I wrote had the time has to be OCRed as I lost the disk, so that will have to wait until another day...

Photos of Stansted shortly after opening
http://england.archiseek.com/london/stansted/airport.html

[Hugh]

My, that was another era all right. A deserted Stansted, and so new they still had the temporary safety rail around the roof. Good pictures, Paul.

At the opening, Foster was rude about some bits of corporate sculpture that had been dumped in the concourses. If only he'd realised what was going to hit the place once the budget airlines got going...

It's been seamlessly expanded since according to Foster's design, but now they're cutting the link: I see that a new phase 2 (or is it 3 or 4?) has gone to Grimshaw.

.

[Paul Clerkin]

Yeah, like the photographs myself, and I'd only just got a camera too. God bless student grants - they paid for my first camera, which I'm still using (although I've acquired a few more).

That was a very weird day though. The underground railway station felt like the bunker of a Bond Baddie except without the army of jumpsuited minions.

[shaun]

Has anyone been to the new Brussels terminals yet , they are real quality, will have to take my camera next time I'm coming over to Dublin.

[phil]

I like those photos Paul. I remember being there back there aswell and thinking it a great place. I was not there again until this summer and I was slightly disappointed by the changes to say the least. It is still a great roof structure though.

[Paul Clerkin]

another big empty airport to close...

Montreal's Mirabel Airport
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1095372613077

[Hugh]

Interesting piece - particularly the bit about it being built so far out of town on the assumption that we'd all be flying in noisy Concordes or equivalent.

Deadly mixture of flawed projections, political interference and changes in the market.

Indeed Mirabel was so quiet that Spielberg used it to film his (few)airside sequences in the Tom Hanks comedy "The Terminal".

There aren't many ghost airports like this. I suppose Scotland's Prestwick is a UK example.

[alan d]

Wonder if it's possible to have an pure, designed airport as clean and clutter free as originally envisaged today.

Stanstead was a real eye opener, concept oblitorated really by the guddle and free form mess maybe the same will happen with Charles de Gaulle...or can you plan for it?

[Hugh]

Copenhagen Airport. The wondrous 1960-ish terminal by Vilhelm Lauritzen had acquired all the usual clutter. So the Danes pushed all that into a new terminal alongside, and have returned Lauritzen's to pretty much its original appearance.

Possibly no other nation would do this. Just as no other nation would also save Lauritzen's original late 1930s terminal from demolition by transporting it right round the other side of the airport, and then restoring it beautifully.

For parties.

[Hugh]

Here's Lauritzen's 1960 Copenhagen terminal:

[Paul Clerkin]

Oh, quite elegant. Are those external rooflights or light fixtures?

[Paul Clerkin]

By the way, when is the new book available?

[phil]

I thought Copenhagen Airport was a fantastic building. I particularly liked the roof structures.

[Paul Clerkin]

From Saturdays San Fran Chronicle

No-thrill air travel has made the former TWA terminal obsolete, but still an architectural wonder
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/18/DDGAP8PV0H1.DTL

[alan d]

How kind of you to mention it Paul, my new book is due out at Christmas.

Called " Sure..what's time to a pig ?" , it's an outsiders guide to the Irish Planning system and in it's an abridged version runs to thirteen volumes.

[Paul Clerkin]

That's great Alan, make sure to send me a copy, I need something to warm the house

[Hugh]

Alan D - you are a Scotch larrikin.

Paul - those are rooflights at Copenhagen, so it's daylit. Note also the way the mezzanine is hung from the roof, so reducing bulk.

The rest is down to noble proportions. Compare Heathrow T4 and weep.

Ahh, the book. No doubt you mean "Airports: a century of architecture". Published by Laurence King in London on October 5, and Abrams in New York on November 1. I cannot recommend it too highly.

Worryingly cheap on Amazon...

[alan d]

well maybe now you've got trouble sleeping, ...............or a table that needs leveling or posture that needs correcting.

There's a thousand and one uses for such a book

D'ye know Hugh that's exactly what my old grannie used to say as she put down her sucked egg......and laterly my probation officer and sometimes social services

[BRG23]

"colinsky" thats what i am talking about, love it, nice air port, thats my style