Dear Snoops,
We return from our SUMMER HIATUS — rested-ish, resolved.
Airports were involved, as we expect they might be for you in these Holiday months (in our case: LAX, LHR, LGW, PSA, FRA, TLL). And, it was impressed upon us how many exceptional décor details are contained within them.
No better escapism décor than THE PORT OF ESCAPE AS DÉCOR. And, we would like to suggest that any INTERMINABLE TERMINAL-ERY be used to contemplate how the (well-décored) airport might in fact offer some very good lessons for the domestic space.
NOTABLY, the airport:
Has mastered the meditative “OUTWARD FACING CHAIR” arrangement
Skillfully, and uniquely blends upscale Suburban décor with genuine ‘industrial’
Makes sense of the most hideous floors (and if you can do it is a great prize!)
“TERMINAL” is not not “HOUSE”, aesthetic-wise: SOME COMPARE-CONTRASTery
KÖLN AIRPORT was 1970 – very CONCRETE + TRIANGLES, very much that “cold as f*ck but somehow still warm” late midcentury “BRUTAL”-bunker energy, very post-War but ready for the next one (and really so much of décor today seems to be the reverse: faux-warmth that is in fact massively alienating).
SOUNDTRACK TO AIRPORTS *ALERT*:
→ Köln is the airport that, might we point out, inspired BRIAN ENO’S “AMBIENT 1: MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS” (1978) that, might we point out, essentially launched the “AMBIENT” genre.
And, you’d think this would not APPEAL domestically – its harshness, its uncompromising geometry. But let us quickly jump in: voila, the VILLA OTTOLENGHI by Carlo Scarpa (curvaceous in its exterior, but here the insides) (completed 1978, the year Scarpa fell down a set of CONCRETE stairs in Sendai, and d*ed) →
OTTOLENGHI is certainly SIBLING to whatever was happening in Köln, absolutely. Not to suggest one is the *reason* for the other, but only that many of us might falsely assume that Airports have nothing to do with “DÉCOR-SUCCESSFUL HOMESCAPES”. But, they do. Glorious creatures emerging from the very same décor swamp.
EXHIBIT B:
The 1970s WALKER ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN-designed airport (New Zealand); the 1980s FRANK GEHRY “NORTON HOUSE” (Venice ← The California one).
We’d venture to say the NORTON house is more AIRPORT CONTROL TOWER than the actualy airport control tower, which is in fact more like a HOUSE.
(WE SHAN’T, BUT COULD compare-contrast the atrocities of Hollywood mega-mansions with the worst of Airport as Bland Shopping Mall… = in short, they are the same.)
The point is, we can point you to a connective tissue between “AIRPORT” and “HOMESCAPE”, décor-wise and ERGO also emotionally.
BRIEFLY: THE MENTAL STATE OF AIRPORT
What is particularly curious about the airport is that usual linear progression of time feels suspended. Which means, they are spaces that are:
= deeply contemplative and existential
And, ergo really give us a fresh sense of how we, individually, operate because
= airport time is essentially “FREE TIME”, because regular time has “stopped”
May we now present a few domestically-intriguing décor themes taken from the AIRPORT.
1. THE INTROSPECTIVE “OUTWARD” CHAIR
There is a homemaking OBSESSION with “conversation”, and arrangements made for the 1% of domestic time hosting Visitors and/or in conversation with cohabitants away from The Dining Table.
The airport asks: Why?
In the context of the ‘free time’ of Airport, don’t we find bliss in silent, solitudinous STARING? If we can pull ourselves away from Screen, is the experience not monk-like?
Does the ‘classic’, hegemonic “CONVERSATION” arrangement make such staring feel sad, lonely, and-or incomplete?
Arrangement-wise, the airport does this instead:
FURTHER EXAMPLE: PERFECTION AT BERLIN’S 1974 TEGEL AIRPORT (ideal ‘German Browns’)
Is STARING CHAIR anti-social? No.
Yes, it is silent(usually) and self-focused, but it does not outright REJECT social interaction. The principle of OUTWARD CHAIR needn’t command fully your décor, but consider it as one element.
The outward chair must, as a Buddhist’s Lotus position, be both relaxing-natural and also rigid-uncomfortable. You mustn’t be so comfortable as to be able to doze off.
This means (a) no footstools, (b) minimal back pitch, and (though not a consideration in airports) (c) s*xy back.
SUGGESTIONS, which skew “OUTER SPACE”, because ‘airport’ always imagines Future:
Also, we’re not really “READERS” per se – so we also skew to those which don’t provide “ARM SUPPORT”. The suggestion here is that you just GAZE.
2. “SUBURBAN INDUSTRIAL”
First, let us list the Universal Suburban Décor Credentials: (a) COMFORT, (b) PRACTICALITY, (c) SEXLESS APPEAL.
Then, might we peek at the domestic Suburban horror of TODD HAYNES’s seminal “SAFE” (1995) – it is crisp, ordered, polite, almost “civically generous” in its form.
And may we then peek at the Johannesburg International Terminal at the O.R. Tambo Airport – those same Suburban-Haynes principles simply scaled way the f*ck up. Even a palette happens to be shared.
Today, of course, the contemporary airport tends to add an “INDUSTRIAL” element, simply out of… exhaustion? Lack of “Design” inspiration + Lack of Budget? But, we’re glad.
Meanwhile, “industrial” in the homescape has gone the opposite direction: totally absorbed into traditional “home” aesthetic parameters.
This is a major problem in “Design”, sometimes it can’t just LET THINGS BE.
Into the domestic sphere we should march not Design, but the Functional and “unaesthetic” – i.e. that which the modern airport has been blending into its Suburban comfort agenda.
For example, we spied some very s*xy, enormous two-armed lamps on the walls of London’s (sh*tty) Gatwick Airport. We would love these to replace the dreaded “Serge Mouille Two-Arm Wall Sc*nce”, the latter being sure-fire sign that someone is desperate for Design Approval. (A classic case of décor mis- and over-use corrupting what is a rather radical Lampery.)
Why are we so afraid to put literal ‘industrial’ sh*t into home? (Especially for those who use Budget Software, or Excel sheets for chores – if you run your Domesticity as an “operation”, consider the aesthetic of the factory floor as décor!)
For good measure, we also just want to note a kind of corporate-industrial-art crossover hit, U.S.M. (which we honestly talk about too often?). You can see here decades-ago Frankfurt airport using the steel rod, powered-coated steel panel as a kind of ‘winged’ ceilingscape. But, such materials are also Highly Popular in the current domestic décor scene, primarily via U.S.M.
Again, we suggest there is a shared ambition:
A sense of Décor Flourish within the aesthetic confines of “EFFICIENCY”
A sense of Futurism but leaning into classic materials and unchallenging shapes
Shiny bits, but that aren’t mirrors (often tacky)
3. FLOOR F*CKERY (and what it says about you)
When, we ask, did carpetery and floorery become so exhaustingly Plain or Cute? What about NAUSEATING? AGGRESSIVE? HUMMINGLY INTENSE?
This Airport floor (CARACAS) is by CARLOS CRUZ-DIEZ, who was, of course, ULTRA refined and f*cking exciting (and whose ‘PHYSICHROMIE’ series explorations are f*cking exceptional). And yet, as floor, it’s a writhing, whirring, intense zig-zaggery that one can hardly imagine enjoying (a) hungover, (b) en route to a funeral, (c) simply tired.
Is it “appropriate” for the often-solemn experience of Airport? No.
Yet, in Caracas, it was determined that you WILL submit, figuratively, to Floor. This is not simply “LOUD” floor, this is Ravel’s Boléro-esque mind-numbing frenetic repetition; this is a psychotic unravelling.
And Airports do have a reputation for the intense-or-even-Hideous underfoot. But, in few circumstances is this currently “allowed” domestically.
PORT EXAMPLES:
Why, you may ask, might we want “HIDEOUS” or “NAUSEATING” floor-ery at home?
Because.
And in fact, to make sense of the Hideous, to make it appealing, requires the HIGHEST DEGREE OF DÉCOR SWAG. A lot of those amazing midcentury homes are great, but ultimately Straightforward, if not easy. Skill-less décor, as much as the things within said décor are gems. (And, they aren’t particularly “PERSONAL”.)
Just as with WARDROBE, those who can manage to bring s*x appeal to the Atrocious are really those navigating the most interesting Aesthetic territory.
COMPLETELY RANDOM ASIDE:
We are often at CANYON, our local café, and it is full of folks looking very Atrocious in the sexiest way. It is catalogued via this crucial and totally new-ish Instagr*m account.
So, consider a f*cking terrible floor.
Anyway, as per, we can really only cover about 5-10% of our thoughts on a subject before an Issue becomes absurdly long and cumbersome.
Reminder that FOR SCALE IN PRINT broadsheet newspaper is BACK IN STOCK both in the U.S.A. (here) and the U.K. (for Europe, too) (here).
And one last Airport, the CATHEDRALic 1997 Washington National airport. (Who needs a church, right?!)
AND FOR REFERENCE, OUR MAJOR RESOURCE HERE WAS AIRPORT ARCHITECTURE.
Until next time. Love and good luck,
This was your best yet. The summer did you good.
Your point about incorporating hideous elements is amazing