| Although many authors have written about the development of aviation, few have written about aeronautical facilities on the ground, which enable craft to operate safely and financially successfully. A few authors have been filling this gap. Even among these few articles and books, no view exists about the development of the system of airports in the United States. This dissertation attempts to explain the origin of the airports, which have developed in this system. This research focuses on the part of the airport, the landside, which guides or briefly diverts passengers in their movements between the central business district or suburb and the door of the aircraft. As important as other aspects of the airport might be, this is not a history of these, which include baggage systems, air traffic controls, hangars and runways. The Introduction explains the importance of airports and the mode of study. Chapter I narrates the formation of the underlying legal concepts, the "dock concept" and the question of "public purpose," which have determined how and who employs architects, engineers, planners and landscape architects to design an airport. Chapter II recounts the inspiration that popular and professional visionary literature provided airport developers. Chapter III examines the earliest archetypes constructed and briefly used between 1926 and 1929. Chapter IV describes the Lehigh Airports Competition and its influence in the United States and abroad. Chapter V describes the history of the archetype important during the period from 1930 to 1938 and which is the foundation for other types of terminals afterward. Chapter VI is the conclusion. It summarizes the crucial developments in American airport policy, planning and design and explains its impact upon contemporary airport policy makers, planners and designers. Finally, this summary and analysis are the basis for a note of the unexamined aspects of the history of airports. |
