How TWA's futuristic terminal gives hope to Tempelhof

WITH the right support, the Templehof could get the reprieve it deserves.

Eero Saarinen's curvaceous and slinky TWA Terminal at New York's John F Kennedy Airport opened in 1962. By the 1990s it faced demolition, despite being hailed as an icon of modern design.

With its seductive wavelike curves of concrete and glass it was also an important physical reminder of the glamorous era of air travel which, for most people, no longer exists.

Its soaring grace was conjured up by Saarinen to mimic the romance of flight. However, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the owner of the building, wanted to demolish sections of it in the name of progress and, in its place, construct a behemoth terminal, leaving the TWA masterpiece isolated and without function.

Thousands of architecture buffs, conservationists, modernist scholars and simple fans of the building launched a voracious campaign.

In 2003, after several years of bitter wrangling, and thanks in large part to the efforts of the Municipal Arts Society, Saarinen's building appeared to have been saved. JetBlue Airways, one of America's new airlines, would incorporate the TWA building in its new terminal.

Happily, last month, approval was given for a low-built 625,000sq ft terminal that will have Saarinen's building as its prominent frontage.

The new design, by the architectural firm Gensler, will define itself according to the former TWA terminal. In other words, it will play second fiddle.

Construction of the terminal, which will add 26 contact gates to JFK, will begin this winter and is scheduled to open in 2008.

Let us hope a similarly happy fate will befall at least some of the buildings at Tempelhof.

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