“Are Landside–Airside Boundaries Cultural Mirrors?”: Reinventions, Innovations and Society

Abstract

In this chapter, the author develops two themes: First, he draws the line between airport reinventions and airport innovations and thus helps the reader by clearing up any blurriness on this matter created by discussing the previous case studies. Second, and foremost, he tries to answer the following question: Are boundaries repeatable pieces of a mechanism, or are they autonomous entities, subject to the absorbing of cultural practices? In the Sect 1, “On Airport Reinventions,” the author discusses how congestion can be highlighted among the causes that prompted full airport reinventions. The Sect. 2, “On Airport Innovations,” speaks of historical changes, departing from what is commonly known in airport planning as the standard, “linear model.” The author presents two iconic cases in which airport layout ideas were introduced that were perceived as new: the 1974 Terminal 1 at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport and the 1960 Pan Am Terminal 2 at New York’s Idlewild Airport (later known as JFK). Last, in Sect. 3 Marquez argues that airports are not clones, or even repeatable copies, as many people may think. The author supports this claim by showing that the frontier between the airside and the landside captures many cultural differences that make each airport unique.