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Who Designs Airports… Engineers, Architects, or City Planners? Aspects of American Airport Design Before World War II

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Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 3))

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Abstract

The “modern” American commercial airport was invented during the two decades before the start of the Second World War. This opening statement has to be written in the passive voice because while it is easy to speak of the invention of airports, there are no inventors — no “Wright Brothers” — responsible for this remarkable technological system which makes commercial air transportation possible. This paper explores a major aspect of the “invention” of airports which was the process of standardization of airport design. In particular, it emphasizes the interaction between and among three separate groups of professionals — engineers, architects and city planners.

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Notes

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  19. Black, “Air Terminal Engineering,” 225.

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  20. Black, “Selection of Airplane Landing Fields,” ii.

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  31. Ibid.

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  42. Ibid.

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  43. Walsh, 36.

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  44. Ibid., 128.

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Authors
  1. Deborah G. Douglas
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard University, USA

    Peter Galison

  2. Duke University, USA

    Alex Roland

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Douglas, D.G. (2000). Who Designs Airports… Engineers, Architects, or City Planners? Aspects of American Airport Design Before World War II. In: Galison, P., Roland, A. (eds) Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century. Archimedes, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4379-0_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4379-0_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-6742-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4379-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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