Saarinen’s TWA Terminal by Max Touhey

El edificio se Saarinen se ha convertido en uno de los elementos a conservar más importantes de Estados Unidos tras su declaración de conservación en 2003. Para los que tuvimos la suerte de usarlo como terminal todo un lujo poder volver a verlo.

Eero Saarinen’s 1962 terminal at John F. Kennedy, which was published on METALOCUS article with photographies by Connie Zho in November last year, now, on June 2015, while the staff of a team of digital scanning - the historical preservationist Lori Walters and her team at ChronoPoints- was at work recording every detail of Eero Saarinen terminal to make a digital 3D model, Curbed NY sent the photographer Max Touhey to document the process and to capture the closed-to-the-public building just ahead of its transformation into a boutique hotel.

It's a special place for architecture and midcentury design lovers—and photographers. Touhey said of his experience shooting:

Even when I'm really excited to shoot a space if it stands the hype the excitement still drops off at a certain point. But TWA is different. You can stand in 100 different places and still be in awe. The interplay of curves is really fascinating and changes dramatically depending on where you're looking. One of my favourite features is of two sharply angled forms on both sides of the "passion pit," two aerodynamic shapes in a sea of curves. I could almost hear a plane taking off! Now I'll have to see what my parents remember from their TWA days when I share the images.

In 2014, I wrote about my experience using the terminal during a trip to LA.-

One of the most famous icons of mid-century modernism, the TWA Flight Center, beautifully restored over the last six years, is on the National Register of Historic Places, in the USA.

One of the last times I had the opportunity to go through the TWA terminal was way to LA in 1998, had missed the flight after waiting in a long queue, and after arriving at the airport from Manhattan on a slow Subway, travelling across the city from my hotel in 109 St. and very early. The stewardess who waited on me was extremely friendly (now, Low-cost lines between his cuts have also reduced friendliness) and I could catch the next flight to Los Angeles. At other times, I returned to cross the terminal again, always looking sideways, thinking that this was a special place, but thinking it was timeless.

José Juan Barba

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Looking back, this picture shows the airline hostesses for TWA, 1966.

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Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen (Rantasalmi, Finland, 1910 - Bloomfield Hills, United States of America, 1961), is an architect of Finnish origin who developed all his professional activity in the United States, a country he moved to in 1923, when he was thirteen years old. He studied sculpture at the Academy of the Grand Chaumiére of Paris in 1929 and architecture at Yale University between 1930 and 1934.

In his first years of professional activity, Eero Saarinen worked in the practice of his father, the also well-known architect Eliel Saarinen, of which he became a partner in 1941 along with J. Robert Swanson. At this time, he was also a professor of architecture at the Cranbrook Art Academy.

After the death of his father in 1950, Saarinen opened his own practice in Birmingham (Alabama) under the name of Eero Saarinen & Associates. Some of his best-known works are the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, the TWA at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and the hockey pavilion at Yale University.

The professional career of Eero Saarinen also included his activity as a furniture designer, creating well-known pieces.

MAX TOUHEY

Max Touhey is a New York City architectural and interior photographer who work with architects, designers and builders in NYC and beyond. His true passion is New York City and Curbed NY has enabled him to photograph the most New York of places. Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal being the latest and greatest.

JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

José Juan Barba (1964) is an architect, graduated from ETSA Madrid (1991), and holds a Doctorate in Architecture from ETSA Madrid, awarded Cum laude for his thesis Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2004). He received a special mention in the National Awards for Completion of Studies (1991) and served as an advisor to various NGOs until 1997. He founded his studio in Madrid in 1992 (www.josejuanbarba.com).

Barba is an architecture critic and has been the director of METALOCUS magazine since 1999. Since 1998, he has directed the International Architecture Magazine METALOCUS (bilingual, Spanish/English), which has been recognized with multiple national and international awards.

He is a Full Professor at the University of Alcalá, leading the project line of the Habilitation Master's Architecture and City, responsible for several courses in Theory and Criticism, heading the Urban Planning area of the Department of Architecture, and participating in the research group Architecture, History, City, and Landscape at UAH. He has been invited to numerous architecture and urbanism forums, including the II Forum of Mexican Cities World Heritage: Urban Development, History, and Modernity, organized by the Pan-American Committee for Urban Development and Historical Heritage, and the World Urban Development Forum (FMDU) in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He has also participated in the International Architecture and Urbanism Conferences from the perspective of women architects, and has lectured at prestigious national and international universities, including the National Building Museum (Washington, DC), Roma TRE, Politecnico di Milano, UPMF Grenoble, ETSA Madrid, ETSA Barcelona, University of Thessaly (Volos), UNAM Mexico, the Faculty of Architecture Montevideo, schools of architecture in Medellín, Quito-Ecuador, Alicante, Málaga, Granada, Seville, A Coruña, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico, IE School, Universidad Europea Madrid, UCJC Madrid, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona, or Università Degli Studi di Genova.

Barba has extensive professional experience in architecture, urban planning, landscape design, and territorial recovery. He has received numerous awards, including the First Prize for Gran Vía Posible for Delirious Gran Vía (Madrid), the River Interpretation Center (Zamora), exhibited at the World Architecture Festival (Barcelona 2008), Santa Bárbara Park (Toledo), the Erich Degner Architecture Prize 1995 promoted by the BBVA Foundation, and his Day Care Center for the Elderly project, featured in Volume 3 of the COAM Madrid Architecture Guide (2007). His work has been published in numerous national and international books and magazines.

He was also Maître de Conférences at IUG-UPMF Grenoble (2013–14), in a position obtained through a European competition. His work has been published internationally. He regularly serves on academic juries, including the editorial competition of Quaderns magazine (2011), as a selector for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2007–2026), as juror for EUROPAN13 Spain (2015–16), TRANSFER in Zurich (2019), and was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale 2016 as part of the exhibition Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione.

He has published several books, including The Dark Line. michele&miquel, dA Vision Design (2024), CONGRESO ANYWAY. The City of Cities (2020), #Positions (2016), and Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2015). He has contributed to other publications such as Public Space Gran Vía. The Tourism City (2020), Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione (2016), La mansana de la discordia (2015), and Contemporary Architecture of Japan: New Territories (2015), as well as chapters in numerous books including Architects: A Professional Challenge (2009), 21st Century Architectures (2007), Ruta de la Plata, New Conquerors of Space (2019), and The Tourism City (2020).

Selected awards include:

- “PIERRE VAGO” ICAC. International Committee of Art Critics Award, London, 2005
- “PANAYIOTI MIXELI AWARD,” SADAS-PEA, award for the promotion of architecture, Athens, 2005
- “SANTIAGO AMÓN” AWARD, award for the promotion of architecture, COAM Madrid, 2000
- FAD Award 07, Ephemeral Interventions, First Prize, M.C. Escher Exhibition, Arquin-FAD, Barcelona, 2007
- World Architecture Festival, Center for Research and Interpretation of the Rivers, Tera, Esla, and Órbigo, Finalist, Barcelona, 2008
- Gran Vía Posible, First Prize, Delirious Gran Vía, Madrid, 2010
- Reform of the Río Segura Surroundings, Award, Murcia, 2010

Published on: August 20, 2015

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