For many Americans, the TWA Terminal was their version of Ellis Island, the first building they stepped into on U.S. soil.

When Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal opened in 1962, it was seen as a “distinctive and memorable” building which endeavoured to “express the drama and excitement of travel.” However, upon its completion, the building could not handle the increase in air travelers as the aviation industry shifted from smaller propeller planes to larger commercial aircrafts. Its obsolescence was apparent even in its early days and it was eventually closed in 2001 when American Airlines bought TWA.

Since then, the building experienced a brief time as a small shopping area back in 2006, but that venture was not successful. Now Port Authority would like the building that represented the zeitgeist of aviation in the 1960’s, and has sat dormant for 10 years, to become the lobby of a swanky boutique hotel.

After investing $20 million in restorations in 2008, the Port Authority is hoping a developer can turn the building into the grand lobby of new low-rise structure, consisting of 150 rooms. The hotel is expected to be situated between the TWA Terminal and the newer JetBlue Terminal.

One of the many issues in finding a new use for the TWA Terminal is its status on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1994, this has meant that the overall form of the building and its interior cannot be changed. The building is also a New York City Landmark, further preserving its undulating form. The developer that takes on this project has to be willing to accept these conditions.

It should not be too difficult to build around, since the TWA Terminal will only form the lobby and not the entire hotel. In terms of the idea of a grand lobby, it would be a fitting transformation. The monumentality of the structure, the free flow of forms, the continuity of space and skylights which cross the roof, facilitate the possibility of a hotel lobby with an impressive aura.

Another issue facing the project is the space available for such a hotel. The area between the TWA Terminal and JetBlue T5 is very tight, even for a small boutique hotel. Also, there are security issues that need to be looked at concerning the presence of a less secure hotel being adjacent and connected to a more secure airport terminal.

If the Port Authority really expects developers to take on this project, renovate the building and change its use to accommodate leases for 25 years or more, some of these issues will have to be answered.

It doing so, we may discover the lobby of boutique hotel is not the best idea for the 60,000 square-foot area of the building. Since the building’s swooping overall design cannot be changed, the new use cannot be too invasive, but must fit smoothly into the provide space.

Let us first rule out any hopes of turning it back into an airport terminal. The growing trend of passengers checking in at home via the internet makes more on-site ticketing obsolete.

Before we go ahead and give the TWA Terminal a new life, there are a couple more issues we should be addressing.

One: should we consider designing buildings to have more than one life, particularly in a city such as New York where change is a constant?

Think about the older buildings that get renovated and are reprogrammed for a new use.

Most of these buildings are torn down, renovated, incorporated into larger buildings or reprogrammed. In the case of the TWA Terminal, it was designed specifically to be an airport terminal, but became outdated due to an upgrade in aircraft technologies and the exponential growth of air transportation.

In some cities, parts of train stations become malls, such as the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in Germany. In other cases, the second life of a building is so fitting, major renovations are not needed. For example, after the Los Angeles Lakers, Kings and Sparks moved to the Staples Center, the Great Western Forum became a house of worship for the massive Faithful Central Bible Church.

Could it be, that the TWA Terminal’s problem was that it fell into the image trap which the great Austrian architect of the early 20^th century, Adolf Loos, argued was the flaw of many buildings of the Modern Movement? Loos felt that modern architects were designing their buildings to look good in photographs and to appear cinematic, instead of being functional.

Certainly, when you consider how quickly the TWA Terminal became outdated after its opening and you take note of the many media photos the building appears in, it can be argued that the TWA Terminal’s underperforming existence and current state of unknown is as a result of modern imagery superseding functionality. Saarinen wanted to give TWA a signature building, but that was the problem from the beginning. It was always suppose to be a massive advertisement for the airline, as were other terminals at what was then Idlewild Airport. Part of the problem with corporate architecture is what to do with the building once the brand has moved on or is non-existent.

This brings us to our second question, which is, do optics matter? Does it matter if the building becomes an examination room for a flight school or some other non-aviation use? Many comments on articles about this story on various media outlets’ websites revealed that many people feel that it should stay within an aviation related program. However, this gets at the core of the issue of finding a new use for an old building, especially when that older building is seen as mere ‘magazine architecture’, wonderfully sculptural, but utterly useless.

Whether the solution is to have a restaurant, museum, theatre, conference center, office space or some other mixture of uses, it will have to be long lasting and not a quick, thoughtless fix, predicated on profits in the immediate future.

Before millions of dollars are spent by a developer with a plan, we should ensure that whatever new use is decided, that thought has been given to the future lives the building. Critics of airline hospitality may see the lobby of a boutique hotel as the best of all the ideas. Considering all of the snow storms the New York City Metro Area has seen this past Christmas, resulting in many delays and stranded passengers, having some place for travelers to rest their heads surely would be more comfortable that sleeping on a suitcase in a seating area.

Unfortunately, if the new life of the TWA Terminal ends up being a band aid solution for airline hospitality, then we haven’t solved the problem of finding new uses for old buildings. Every new building eventually becomes old and uses changed based on economic requirements. It may be time for us to start designing our buildings with this in mind. Form should follow continuous function.

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