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An Eames Idea That Didn't Fly: The Expanding Airport
By Ray Hu - Jun 28, 2012
Here's a gem from the MCM archives (via Visual News): "'The Expanding Airport' was created for the presentation of the new international airport for Washington, D.C. in 1958. Through familiar sounds and experiences, comparisons and basic infographics, the Eameses were able to distill complex concepts into something digestible and clear."
According to Lin Morris:Charles and Ray Eames made this film for their friend Eero Saarinen so that he could concisely tell the history of his breakthrough idea for Dulles Airport in Washington DC. Saarinen had only two hours to meet with the heads of the major airlines and he had found in rehearsals of his presentation he used most of that time setting up the history. Charles and Ray did it in less than ten minutes, and lacked nothing in charm and appeal.
With this short, the Eames Studio achieved a different kind of timelessness, at least to the extent that all mistakes offer lessons to posterity. In fairness to Charles & Ray, the animated short was perhaps the most successful part of Eero Saarinen's concept for an "Expanding Airport," which was a bit more ambitious than, say, a house of cards, perhaps to its own detriment: today, the notion of a 'mobile lounge' sounds more like a padded room for making calls (à la smoking lounge) than a modular waiting area.
To be perfectly honest, I don't remember the last time I was at Dulles, so I was unaware that Saarinen's design was executed in full, from the epic swoop of the main terminal building to the overly optimistic shuttle system, introduced about halfway through the video. (As of 2010, travelers can access the freestanding concourses via AeroTrain, the people-mover-of-choice these days: I lived in Atlanta for many years and I remember the Plane Train at Hartsfield-Jackson, which passed beneath the parallel concourses like the slash in a tally or a subterranean skewer.)
The other option, of course, is the moving walkway, which lends itself to meme-friendly antics:
via Abe1x
Ray Hu
Formerly an editor and currently a contributor to Core77 (among other publications), Ray brings a broad interest in popular culture, media, and technology — alongside an abiding passion for art, music, and cycling — to his practice as a journalist and critic.
2 Comments
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This is a great video. You can see this and more at the latest Design Museum Boston exhibition, Getting There: Design for Travel in the Modern Age now on view at Grand Circle Gallery at 347 Congress St. in Boston. You can get more information at www.designmuseumboston.org. See you there!!Report as spam
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Too bad that at Dulles the "mobile lounge" turned into a crowded bus that you have to wait in to take you to another terminal.!Report as spam
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