https://airminded.org/2023/06/19/the-year-of-reading-airmindedly-vii/ ( )

Airports are among my favorite places in the world, despite how awful the experience of flying itself can be. I found this book to be an engaging bit of niche architectural history that tracks the major periods of airport development from the early 1920s until the early 2000s. Thankfully, the book contains many (black and white) illustrations, photos, diagrams and maps to bring the words to life.

Read this if, like me, you're interested in learning, in broad strokes, how these often mundane structures came to be built how they are today. It's fun to see that early airports were built to be aesthetically interesting (some neoclassical, some art deco, etc.), then morphed into what are essentially functional warehouses (Atlanta, LAX, O'Hare). ( )

Naked Airport takes an architectural look at the design, significance and relevance of airports since Charles Lindberg's nonstop solo transatlantic flight in 1927. Larger politically relevant details are included, but not to a large extent, which I think minimizes the impact of this book (although I concede that it may detract from the artistic viewpoint of airport design).

A lot has changed since the early days of aviation. Anybody who has been flying for even just 20-30 years can attest to how much it has changed since the 1990s. Much of that change has been negative, and most of that change has taken place in the airport itself. This book discusses the impact of air hijackings in the 1970s on airport design, but left a scant few pages in an epilogue to the post-9/11 impact, which was far more widespread and severe in its scope.

Most airports have been designed with gross underestimates of the volume of passengers who would eventually use them. Deregulation disincentivized airlines from using smaller and less profitable airports, further exacerbating the capacity problems at large airports. Together with the aforementioned Orwellian security measures, these two facts have made air travel and airports the uncomfortable dystopian nightmares that they currently are. Of course, this book does not really spend much time discussing the reason WHY airports are so terrible, it just discusses that they ARE terrible. I guess I would have just liked a little more analysis. ( )

Gordon does not offer a comprehensive, encyclopedic overview of all that transpired between the first rough-and-tumble tin shack in North Carolina to the latest gauzy megastructure in Southeast Asia…thankfully. This is also not some impenetrable esoterica about placeless, globalized space mirroring an increasingly shrinking world - my second guess/fear upon seeing the reasonably sized book. No, this is simply a nicely synthesized and engaging historical narrative about airports and airlines! Concise but seemingly comprehensive enough, Gordon provides a pleasing balance of particular architectural developments, the evolving societal engagement with flying, important political and financial aspects over the years, and interesting-yet-relevant anecdotes. Juan Trippe bulldozes over any pesky, legitimate government for the sake of a new Pan Am connection; yet more tales about the United Fruit Company running/ruining the Americas south of the Rio Grande to, presumably, sell more fruit. It’s a splendid read!

The span of this study encompasses – as the epilogue states – the time between Lindberg (well, really the Wrights) and Bin Laden. In that regard it does end rather abruptly with 9/11. This seems an appropriate stopping point but the conclusion doesn’t seem to convincingly anchor the book. At the same time I found the aspect of flight’s social dimensions throughout the years palpable as portrayed within the narrative. There were the obvious initial fears and curiosity which generally gave way to a well-marketed perception of glamour coupled with (to a large degree) acceptance and comfort which eventually gave way to the now predictable sense of burden and malaise that, despite whatever computerized waterfalls and “aerophobia workshops” some airports provide, seem inevitable in the era of stupid shoe bomb attempts and drunks defecating in airplane aisles. (I do wonder if a study would show that the few airports that provide smoking lounges have a dramatically lower rates of passenger aggression than those that simply offer fern gardens and typically fourth-rate public “art”?) I guess, as 9/11 was something of an abrupt conclusion to an age of relative comfort, innocence, or flat-out denial (at least within the US), the seemingly truncated conclusion might be right on target.

My other, less significant critique is directed towards the title. Whereas “Naked Airport” is eye catching, it also implies some type of scandalous exposé or, at the very least, a peeling back of the proverbial onion layers of airport/airline history. I hardly think any of the content was previously classified or unpublished elsewhere, so the title seems a bit misleading. At any rate, this is a fine offering with many merits as a “page-turner.” ( )

Almost taken from me while traveling through security at Bradley. Good balance between technology and culture. ( )