Airports As Seen Through the Eyes of the Landside–Airside Boundary
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AIRPORTS AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE LANDSIDE–AIRSIDE BOUNDARY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Victor Oscar Marquez Cravioto August 2013 © 2013 Victor Oscar Marquez Cravioto AIRPORTS AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF THE LANDSIDE–AIRSIDE BOUNDARY Victor Oscar Marquez Cravioto, Ph.D. Cornell University 2013 Can we challenge the way we have written the history of airports and the form in which we understand them today and perhaps tomorrow? In this work I use the landside–airside boundary as a lens to see through the airport and its history. In doing so, I try to look for new answers that may throw some light on the obscure (vaulted) sociotechnical processes of change that have turned the airport into an “unresolved problem.” In this regard I frame the discussion of boundaries from several perspectives including security, permeability and containment, invention and reinvention, culture and imposition, literature and scholarship, its physical and non- physical representations, technological change, and so forth. Just the identification of these “entities” may also add to Thomas Hughes’s model of Large Technological Systems, because the landside–airside boundary shows how systems are constructed in a different sequence from Hughes’s model. As I show in this study, only three cases have altered the “linearity” of standard airport design: New York LaGuardia, Washington Dulles, and Tampa International Airport. These cases sum up the only full reinventions of airports through history, and by unfolding their own unique stories, I try to reveal how an airport gets born. Can we prove that the landside–airside boundary is the single most important feature that shapes an airport? BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Victor Marquez earned a Master of Arts with a concentration in Sociology and History of Technology from Cornell University, a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the National University of Mexico. As a Fulbright Scholar he is currently conducting research on airports and the culture of mobility. Since 2006 he has acted as a Member of the Board for the Global TC Chan Center for Energy Studies; recently he was appointed Director of the Program “Future Urban Mobility” at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, and Urban Design Counselor for Mexico City’s government. He was the 2010 Guest Lecturer at Urban Islands at University of Sydney, Australia; an Associate Professor at four different universities in Mexico; and a guest lecturer and critic at the University of Pennsylvania’s GSD. Since 2005 he has lectured or presented papers at more than twenty prestigious institutions and conferences in the U.S., Middle East, Europe, Australia, Central America, and Northern and Southern Asia and a TED Talk lecture in the fall of 2012. At present he is the Principal of VMA S.C. + VMT in Mexico City and Monterrey, a design, planning, and consultation studio focused on the transportation sector. He is a member of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), the International Association for the History of Transport Traffic and Mobility (T2M), the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), the Swiss Association for the Studies of Science, Technology and Society (SASTS), and the Cornell Club in New York City. iii DEDICATION To my mother and In memory of Hans Meyer + iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Any intent to produce serious scholarship requires the inspiration, intelligence, and long dedication of its author; however, authorship requires meeting at least two conditions: first, the humility to acknowledge that we only interpret from the experience and lives of others and that it is only because others have produced knowledge before us that we can see further; second, that within the darkness of that accumulated sea of thoughts, letters, and images, it is only through the guidance of others that we may find the path towards what we seek. Hence, what we put on paper as individuals will always remain in time as a collective effort. For his patience and intellectual generosity I first thank Dr. Ron Kline, who became my mentor after we crossed words in 2005. This work would not have been possible without the long hours Ron devoted to marking up the manuscript and the several extra hours he gave advising me in his office, a café, or anywhere else we met in the world. Furthermore, I owe him because through the years he has showed me a new way of thinking. Likewise, I show my gratitude to Dr. Trevor Pinch and Dr. Mike Lynch, who, after spending numerous hours with me inside and outside the classroom, became sort of my “intellectual pillars.” I thank them and Dr. Phoebe Sengers for advising me along the way as members of my committee. In particular, I appreciate the time Phoebe took to discuss with me the implications of S&TS thinking in design, as well as her comments and suggestions for the future publication of this work, which are incredibly valuable. I thank my professors and my colleagues in S&TS because I learned much of what I know directly from them (especially Katie Proctor for her genuine support when we set foot in Ithaca). I must also acknowledge Dr. Derek Cabrera for introducing me formally to systems thinking, because as I argued in a TED Talk I gave last year, I will always fight against linear thinking and its noxious implications. v Much of the core material that set out the basis for my argument came directly from those who, with their talent and determination, established the profession of airport planning. I cannot describe how thankful I am to the legendary Marge Brink Coridan, Gene Lewis, Alistair Sherret, and Bill Dunlay for answering my questions and, along the way, passing on to me their vibrant enthusiasm for airports. I especially thank my friend Alceste Venturini for opening the doors of Jacobs Consultancy and its literature, truly an invaluable gesture. But the further back I went in history, oral histories were silenced by the inexorable pass of time. Thus I needed the valuable assistance of those who order and classify knowledge. I appreciate the help I received from Douglas Di Carlo at La Guardia and Wagner Archives in Long Island City, Cynthia Ostroff at the Manuscripts and Archives at Yale University Library, Rodney Kite-Powel at the Tampa Bay History Center, Clarice Reardon at the Hillsborough County Library, Christine Peers and Jenifer Peals at the Tampa Historical Society, Dr. Robert Kerstein at the University of Tampa, Dr. Gary Mormino at USF St. Petersburg, and the staff at the National Archives II in Maryland, the New York Public Library, and the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. In this work I often echo the voices and work of others, and they deserve much of the credit for this dissertation. I kindly thank those authors who lavishly shared thoughts about this work or discussed with me topics related to airport history such as Dr. Deborah Douglas—an inspirational model for this book, Dr. Marc Dierikx, Dr. Peter Lyth, Dr. Joe Corn, Dr. Nathalie Roseau, and Dr. Gordon Pririe. I also thank my colleagues Angeles Miranda, Grace Torre, Jean-Philippe Percheron, and Emilio Gil for those long discussions in the practice of airport planning and design: we were in fact, from the professional trenches, chasing the meaning of what a landside–airside boundary might be. We still are. And although he belongs to another cycle in my academic life, my previous mentor at the University of Pennsylvania, the prestigious vi Scottish structural engineer and philosopher of technology Peter McCleary, is much responsible for my intellectual appetite. I thank him for always sharing with me his profound thinking. A dissertation is also a collection of words, which must be carefully placed and hierarchized in order to transmit ideas and thoughts. Thus I owe much of the structure and readability, coherence and style of this text to some generous friends, teachers, and editors who directly or indirectly have contributed to this work. I thank Dr. Keith Hjortshoj because he showed me the power of poetry, narrative, and style. I also deeply thank my life-long friend Sabrina Spannagel at the University of Washington for her advice on the first chapters of this thesis. Finally, the biggest input came from my editor, Kristen Ebert-Wagner, who shoulder to shoulder discussed with me each idea and paragraph, until it reached its final shape. I have been privileged to learn from all of them. I thank Cornell University for awarding me the Sage Fellowship and the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) for supporting my graduate studies for several years. Finally, I feel honored and profoundly thankful to the U.S.–Mexico Commission and the U.S. Department of State for awarding me the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship in 2005, which generously funded part of my doctoral studies. Through the years I have learned much of this great country and its standing commitment to preserve and promote knowledge, to the benefit of humanity. For embracing my dreams as hers, all my gratitude to Cosette. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ......................................................................................... iii DEDICATION .............................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................