Description:
Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal is another of his inspired essays in sweepingly curved building forms, this time celebrating flight. Paradoxically, while the terminal's layout and equipment were technically advanced and carefully thought-out, its form was arbitrarily sculptural rather than structurally rational. The explosive growth of passenger traffic overloaded the capacity of a building whose form defied expansion. Today, the TWA Terminal can be seen as a monument to a simpler, more intimate, and more gracious era of commercial flight. The terminal is just one of the modernist icons that preeminent architectural photographer Ezra Stoller documented in a career that spanned more than half a century. Now retired, Stoller has been reassembling his work for permanent (rather than periodical) publication. The TWA Terminal is one of a series published by Princeton Architectural Press that presents individual buildings in depth in a small-size volume. The photographs are not only stunning, they have particular documentary value in that Stoller shot them when the buildings were new--in this case, 37 years ago. The series has been designed for relative affordability, and its subjects are well chosen. Each volume includes a very brief preface by Stoller setting out his relationship to the building and a fairly short critical, historical, analytical essay. Buttressed by about a dozen endnotes, the essays occupy a middle ground between informal and scholarly writing. They are followed by 50 to 60 duotone photos and a few plan drawings. This is an expert look at an extraordinary building and well worth readers' serious attention. --John Pastier
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