I suppose that every architects know the TWA Terminal Eero Saarinen designed for JFK airport (New York) in 1962. However, the following photographs are maybe less known but almost as extraordinary than the building itself: pictures of the large size model built by Saarinen’s office prior to the construction. Photographs taken inside the model give the impression of being in the building itself but the joints and tape between each pieces of cardboard (wood ?) produce a very strange feeling.
The plans of the Terminal are also fantastic so I included them at the end of this post. Without being nostalgic of an era I am not even close from having known, I cannot help to think that very few firms nowadays are considering plans and sections as a field of creativity. The following ones are here to open the way !
model’s photographs are extracted from the book Saarinen’s Quest: A Memoir by Richard Knight. San Francisco: Stout Publishers, 2008.
plans are extracted from the book Eero Saarinen: An Architecture of Multiplicity by Antonio Roman. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003
Thanks Hiroko !