Flying Architecture

Date: Feb 4, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Unfortunately, I am not going to talk here about buildings flying in the air (maybe one day in the near future). Instead, I want to share my experience in the buildings we use when we are about to fly.

As usual, I bought my plane tickets at the very last moment. The prices were so high that I had to buy a connecting flight with a four hour wait in between two flights. I fell asleep... I suddenly woke up and for a moment it was impossible to know where I was. The architecture is always the same. There are always the same big shiny square tiles in the floor, translucent glass, metal guardrails and big commercial ads everywhere, a duty free shop in front of me, a Starbucks in the corner.... Even the feminine voice making unintelligible announcements in several different languages was not helpful either.

Only looking at people, their physical appearance and their clothing styles gave me the clue I needed.

How is it possible that people, continuously on the move, still keep their cultural identity while buildings, so attached to the ground, don’t?

Although I definitely understand security and budget issues and program constraints, it is hard to believe that it is so difficult to keep something of the unique cultural richness of each country in these big transit places that welcome us when we travel and offer us the first impression of a new place to discover.

I imagine my office working on a row of full aroma tulips in an Amsterdam airport corridor, designing oriental-type lighting fixtures in an Istanbul airport or composing beautiful and colorful tiles in a Seville airport.

Just like grandma adding a pinch of our garden herbs in a healthy meal just to make it more savory and to always keep it authentic.

 

Photo credit:  http://randomstory.org