There's a reason that no other airport in the world is even remotely similar to Dulles. Dulles blows. The entire system of moving a passenger from ticket booth to terminal to plain is completely inefficient.

I'll admit that the main terminal looks cool. And the weird buses they use to move from terminal to terminal were probably cool to people several decades ago. (Today they look like a throwback to a bad 1970s sci-fi movie like Westworld.) But architecture is supposed to be more than just interesting to look at. It is supposed to order a space in which people carry out their day-to-day lives. An airport is a perfect example. When I go to an airport, looking at the architecture might be an interesting way to pass the time. But other tasks ultimately take priority--such as finding the bathroom (difficult at Dulles), getting to my gate (time consuming at Dulles), or getting through security (god forbid you should do this during peak travel times because it's a f***ing nightmare). In short, the lack of concern for function at Dulles creates needless problems and extends the amount of time that it takes to get on your plane.

That is ultimately Saarinen's problem. A lack of respect for function in architecture. Even symphony halls and theaters, which tend to be more artistically designed than other buildings, are designed with supreme respect for the demands of good acoustics within a functional performing space. Sometimes Saarinen can get away with it. The St. Louis Gateway Arch is quite nice. But as a monument, its form is its function. The same cannot be said of the TWA terminal, which is just plain weird if you ask me.

It seems too many architects have a "lack of respect for function in architecture." The downtown Seattle Public Library is another example (bathrooms being an issue as in Dulles). As I grow older my respect for architects diminishes.

Yes! That's exactly what I was going to say. And honestly, while it still looks interesting, it hasn't weathered well, and these days it seems like it just doesn't achieve, aesthetically, what its creator intended -- it looks like an ambitious failure, not a landmark success.

It also looks better in the old picture shown in this Slate slideshow, than it does in real life. Maybe the expansion degraded its apperance.

robot-rock:

There's a reason that no other airport in the world is even remotely similar to Dulles. Dulles blows. The entire system of moving a passenger from ticket booth to terminal to plain is completely inefficient.

I'll admit that the main terminal looks cool. And the weird buses they use to move from terminal to terminal were probably cool to people several decades ago. (Today they look like a throwback to a bad 1970s sci-fi movie like Westworld.)...

Regarding the minor point of Dulles being the only airport in the world to employ the 'mobile lounge' I flew from Montreal-Mirabel (now cargo only) in the 1980's and the same form of terminal to aircraft transport was used on my flight. From the wikipedia article, "Passengers walked as little as 100 meters going from the curb to the gate. Once there, passengers would be transported to their aircraft by Passenger Transfer Vehicles (PTVs), rather than walking through jet ways. The PTVs, similar to those at Washington Dulles International Airport, ran from the terminal to the aircraft parking spot on the ramp." <link>

The airport was unpopular for reasons not related to the PTVs and ultimately relegated to cargo only status. I thought it was pretty cool at the time.

A few years ago a fellow coworker and I were in Dulles, and as a result of its complicated layout, had become within minutes of missing a connection home. The connection would have been easy to make with the time that we had in just about any other airport.

While riding on one of those goofy buses, my associate and I were joking and bitching about what a total disaster Dulles is, when a well-dressed man leaned close to us and loudly said in a snooty and condescending tone "Do you know who designed Dulles?"

Not knowing, I said "Helen Keller?" and the whole bus went crazy with laughter and agreement. The snooty man turned beet red, and never did say who designed it.

I remember flying out of Dulles as a child and teenager, before it was the monumentally busy airport it is today.

With lower flow, it wasn't a completely unefficient airport, but it was always different than flying in and out of National. Which, back then, was small and old-fashioned and crowded. Dulles, by comparison, was open and bright.

Now, though, I'll take National any day, and twice on Sunday. Their expansion - including the easy access of Metro - makes the airport easier to use than the now labyrinthine Dulles. (Unless, of course, you gotta go through the old National terminal...)

Saarinen didn't anticipate massive expansion, which is Dulles' major fault.

According to the article, Saarinen DID anticipate the massive expansion -- he left the ends of the design open specificall so it could be expanded.

Frankly, I'm in total agreement with the original post -- it ought to be renamed "Lewinsky International" because it blows.

Some of this is NOT Saarinen's fault. Airport designers in the 1960s and 70s couldn't anticipate the post-9/11 security environment. I'm from Kansas City, where the KCI or MCI (Kansas City or Midcontinent International -- I can't remember which name they're using at the moment, and it's been both) was designed in the early '70s to provide a minimum time-span from the car to the plane -- its designers envisioned a passenger being dropped off at the curb and boarding the plane in 30 seconds. This level of efficiency was almost achieved, but after 9/11 it is impossible, and the very thing that made the aiport excellent 20 years ago makes it miserable today -- there was no room in the design for the secure areas necessary in a post 9/11 airport.

This shouldn't be a concern at Dulles, where the airports design is basically an open box, but it still is a problem. I entered a snaking quieu for security at Dulles three years ago during a peak travel period (4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon) and walked in line for nearly 90 minutes before clearing into a jammed waiting pen to get on a flight. That can't be blamed on Saarinen, either -- but Saarinen's design is mostly to be looked at, not lived in. The science fiction writer Robert Heinlein was at least partially correct when he said that architects copy each other's mistakes and call it art.

Now I understand--Saarinen designed every building I hate.

I visited Yale two years ago and was astonished at the brutish and throwaway appearance of Morse and Stiles. The buildings looked like buildings from the state school I attended, or worse. Functionally, it's repugnant.

Dulles is a terrible airport, functionally and aesthetically. It always has been; my mother hated it and so do I. I hate the floor, the ceiling, the swooping disaster of a roof.

Granted, the Arch in St. Louis is iconic. Ever been inside it? Taken one of the swivelling, jerking pods to the top? Not for the claustrophobic or overweight.

The TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport's terminal has some elegant lines, but, like all Saarinen's work, its a shabby structure.

His work has the feel of an old couch relegated to the basement. The stains are almost more interesting than the original object they blemish.

Ouch!

As a child in the 60s, I remember visting Dulles with my mother and grandmother. Recently opened, the soaring architecture, the bright interior and the fascinating mobile lounges drew many non-flying tourists for a look-see. We were allowed to board a mobile lounge and received an airside tour that I remember to this day.

Designed for the new "jet age," Saarinen conceived an airport that would be user friendly to the passenger. The use of mobile lounges allowed remote parking of aircraft which, in turn, allowed a compact terminal design that would reduce the long walking distances passengers were experiencing at other airports. 200' from curbside to aircraft was the intent.

What Saarinen, and others, did not anticipate was a jet age with aircraft capable of carrying more than 400 people on a single flight. He also did not anticipate the loss of innocence brought about by the spate of hijackings that began in the U.S. in the early '60s. This phenomenon and the resulting security requirements would cause a security screening holdroom to be build on the back of the Terminal effectively cutting out a third of its natural light. He did not anticpate 9/11 and the dizzying array of ever-changing, ever-increasing security requirements that have followed. And finally, he did not anticipate how quickly the Federally owned and operated Dulles would transform from a gently used "white elephant" in the middle of Virginia farmland, to a major domestic and international gateway in the midst of a fast-growing new technolgogy belt.

Dulles' unique position as one of the only two passenger airports in the nation (National is the other) under Federal control meant that while any revenues it produced went into the Federal coffers, the adminstrators of the Airport had to get in the very long and stingy budget line to receive Federal funding that was, at best, barely enough to keep National and Dulles in patchwork repair, much less make any significant improvements to meet changing requirements.

With the transfer of the operation from the Feds to a regional authority in 1987, revenues produced at Dulles now go back into airport improvements and bonds are sold to raise money for major capital improvements. The ink was barely dry on the transfer papers when Dulles opened up its new International Arrivals Building. This was followed by the expansion of the Main Terminal to the length originally conceived by Saarinen. New remote and close-in parking was added, roadways were expanded and airfield improvements were made. A new permanent midfield concourse added new airline gates, and another permanent concourse was added to the base of the Main Terminal, replacing the trailers that had served as "temporary" gates for far too many years. A new airport traffic control tower was built and supporting infrastructure put in place.

And now under construction; a new, underground automated people mover system that will be called AeroTrain. Miles of tunnels have been constructed under active taxiways and facilities. The train station for the Main Terminal, and a new, expansive Security Screening Mezzanine are being built in the space between the Terminal and the iconic Dulles Tower. The train stations for active concourses ... and the "shells" for concourses yet to be built ... are under construction. The existing International Arrivals Building is being expanded and a new runway will open later this year. Through it all Dulles continues to serve more than 20 million passengers a year (with Mobile Lounges no less!) while trying to anticipate the needs of a chaotic airline industry and ever-changing security requirements.

In 2009, when AeroTrain goes into its first phase of operation, Dulles will be able to offer its passengers a long-awaited, greatly enhanced level of service.

Still, work will continue because Dulles is currently operating at about half of its potential capacity. There is the potential for another runway and for three more midfield concourses, with the possibility of another Terminal located at the south end of the airport, and the final build-out of AeroTrain that will accompany these improvements.

And through all the changes stands Saarinen's vision, a simple, yet extraordinary, monument to flight that impressed me many years ago, and so many millions of people since. Saarinen may have lacked a crystal ball to the future, but his design endures.

It's difficult to believe that most of the posts here are about the same airport that I know and never fail to be excited by. The dulles terminal, before and after expansion, and its tower are simply [as the author of the article put it] glorious. I've seen them many times and, like so much of Saarinen's architecture, they still take my breath away.

There isn't much to be said for an adult who can not locate the bathroom in the terminal, except that he should always travel with a personal satellite locater and an extra roll of toilet paper, just in case. The mobile lounges were a unique and inventive attempt to overcome the endless corridors that mar virtually every other major airport, from O'Hare on down. And ramps are at least as accessible at Dulles as at other airports. One can only wonder if any of the posters could have foreseen the dubious practices posing as "security" at US airports since 9/11. Why, Saarinen must have been a total dunce not to have foreseen the rational moslem mind at work on 9/11! And America's questionable response. But you see, he designed in accordance with the program requirements then foreseeable and foreseen not just by him but by the expert airport authorities who built it. It is a magnificently functional airport, a grand place, and the only delightful aspect of commercial flight left to passengers who are caught up in the horrible air travel system which now exists in the US.

And it wouldn't hurt some of the slobs one sees at airports nowadays to make themselves a little more "well dressed". They might find the travel experience just a bit more bearable. The only thing wrong with Dulles is the name. The nasty functionary whose name taints the place didn't deserve such a celebratory structure as his nominal resting place.

The article wonderfully and at long last honors the most graceful and magnificent American architect of the mid-20th century, and that recognition is long overdue. I can remember as a child of no more than six being overwhelmed merely with murals of the Gateway Arch many years before it was built. Awed enough to grow up to go to architecture school, Saarinen as my inspiration. You are wrong, however, about Stiles and Morse, and about Black Rock. The former two are marvelous campuscapes as well as well-functioning residence halls. What can be bad about Italian hill towns? And the only thing that diminishes Black Rock, that great tektonic shaft of granite that erupts out of the Manhattan bedrock, is its unfortunately modest height.

And one can only wonder at hindsight-endowed whiners who think that Saarinen somehow "cop[ied]" others. How inane! As for the comments that some aspects of Saarinen's work are or are not "cool" or "weird", what is there to say except that for such critics, there's always "The Simpsons". As for the transportation system inside the Gateway Arch allegedly being too small---well, don't go up there! Admire it for its purpose, as a soaring symbol of America's manifest destiny. Hike up the dizzying staircase of the Statue of Liberty instead [or is IT a terrible structure because you're not comfortable with the climb?]. Somehow, millions of other visitors manage to somehow endure the ascent and descent each year and come away inspired.

Admittedly, however, the Arch is deficient in that it does not have luxury skyboxes.

Thank you, Halia and eeros, for saying exactly what I would have said -- only you did it much more eloquently and knowledgeably. We forget that in the early 60s the jet age was still in its infancy, flying was still fairly glamorous and rarified ("jet set" came from somewhere, you know), and much of the industry and the design seen throughout, --from planes to standards of service to architecture -- was far more aspirational. The dreary utilitarianism that's the norm today might better address traffic flow issues, but god if it isn't depressing. On the other hand, further evidence that the optimal balance between functionality and inspiration hasn't quite yet been struck can be found at oh my GOD, Charles DeGaulle what the *hell*.

At the time Dulles Airport was designed, in the late 50's, there was no apparent need for security checks. The airport of out in the boonies and considered too big for its time. Air travel was still considered exciting, rather than an every day event. Ramps had not been invented yet. (Perhaps they were inspired by the mobile lounges designed by Saarinen.) Walking endless corridors inspired the mobile lounges, to cut down on walking, and the idea was to drive up to the curb, walk to the ticket counter, leave your bag, walk to the mobile lounge and travel to your plane (unless you needed to find a rest room). That process has clearly changed since the design of Dulles, and the midfield terminal makes a joke of not walking far, but the midfield terminal was someone else's design. Admittedly Dulles has not held up to time as well as the St. Louis Arch which was designed at the same approximate time. Can't speak to your opinion of the TWA terminal. Saarinen believed that architecture should inspire. Nothing I've seen of late inspires me a bit. Architecture has become a series of boxes and the practice of architecture has become a series of mazes and regulations. Interesting to think that Saarinen was designing at a time when computers weren't used. Slide rules were the tools of the day. Just a little bit of historical perspective.

You're right about Saarinen and his vision. The building was dramatically too cool for its time. Now it's too hot in the daytime and too dark at night, but that's not Saarinen's fault.

Since you obviously work for MWAA, I just want to let you know about a mistake in the video that plays while you're waiting in front of security. D2 does not stand for "Dulles Development." It's short for "Darrell and Darrell," as in, "Hi! I'm Larry and this is my brother Darrell and this is my other brother Darrell."

It is true that we cannot hold Saarinen responsible for the changes in the airline industry any more than we can blame Minoru Yamasaki for not anticipating a 767 crashing into his building.

With that said, Saarinen's design does not endure. We who travel must endure his design, and not happily. The mobile lounge concept is dated and highly inefficient (as someone who missed his Christmas season flight by mere seconds due to the lounge driver granting right of way every luggage tractor on the tarmac, I speak from painful first hand experience).

Moreover, the interior of Dulles looks like an afterthought. It smacks of a dreary concrete warehouse better suited for a BJ's or Sam's Club than a jet set airport.

I respect architects who take risks and try new things in the name of a better customer experience. But the custodians of those designs have a responsibility to give it up when it doesn't work. Dulles' decision to build gates closer to the terminal and install walkways is past due.