Before I even stepped onto campus something happened, and it has shaped the way I think about the built environment ever since.

It was the mid-1990s and mid-degree in Perth, Western Australia when I embarked on an exchange program in the US. After long hours in the aircraft’s beige homogeneity, with its temperature control, bland food, and artificial lighting, we disembarked at the Honolulu airport and it struck me like lightning, I truly knew we had traveled far from home.

Learning from Honolulu (with apologies to Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi)

The airport greeted me with an interior that softly spoke “Hawaii”. No announcements needed.

I felt transported into the Blue Hawaii movie set. It was the clarity of a sense of place. Yes, it was dated, but it was richer and more evocative than most airport interiors I had previously experienced. It became clear to me that for all the benefits of modernist and minimalist design and the virtues of simplicity, it came at a cost. A lack of place, time, and individuality.

As a long-time lover of simple design, my thinking started shifting. The Honolulu airport interior was proudly decorated with First Nation’s craft and symbolism that was a celebration of place, its people, heritage, and culture. I was in no doubt where on the planet I had landed. I loved it and I thought:

Why don’t we have this experience in Australia, a celebration of our First Nation’s people and heritage?

Back then it wasn’t just Australia, even now, how many times have you left an airport and upon landing you enter the airport building, but its sameness left you feeling you hadn’t really arrived yet? There is an uncomfortableness. So many hours of travel in that sardine can in the sky, only to arrive at the airport and still feel somehow like you are traveling. Not quite somewhere yet, but instead you could be anywhere. The airport environment feels like an extension of the aircraft: its universality.

Only once outside you could physically place where you were in the world.  Maybe it’s the humidity that hits you. Or the car horns tooting. Or the foreign language spoken in the car park. However, the built environment could at least guide a visitor’s first experience of a place.

Airports and Public Art

20 years later I would be invited to design a public art installation at the Perth International Airport as part of the airport redevelopment by Woods Bagot. What a treat! I knew I wanted to evoke the richness of Perth and shared connection to the stars by the First Nations population and our rich multicultural population. You can read more about that project here.

The use of public art to evoke a strong sense of place is now common in larger cities. On a recent trip to Brisbane, upon arrival I was greeted by The Butterflies; a public art installation by artist Louise Pearson in collaboration with Hassell. With almost 100 suspended metal forms at a metre wide, the space is immediately transformed into one that is unique to the place. Subtle, yet transformative. The airport also has a series of artworks throughout the Terminals and Skygate including sculptures, custom furniture, murals, and a huge kinetic façade by Ned Kahn covering what would overwise be an unsightly carpark. Brisbane Airport also hosts an Artist-in-Residence program every year. You can read more about that here on the BNE website.

Heathrow Airport features a 77 ton sculpture, 78 metres long, by Richard Wilson, which is designed as a metaphor for travel. Whilst impressive, I wonder how much it contributes to creating a link to the City of London?

One of the most impressive collections of public art at an airport must be the collection curated by the San Francisco Arts Commission. With over 120 pieces of art in a range of mediums and scales from artists all over the world, including locals, it provides a rich array of possibilities for audience engagement. The collection speaks of the innovation and creativity of the city. I urge you to browse their collection if you are interested in public art in airports; see the SFO Museum (a division of the San Francisco International Airport) website here.

Today the integration of art and storytelling into places of transportation hubs such as airports is more commonplace. Throughout the US and Australia, we are seeing an increase in funding toward public art in transportation hubs that celebrate the uniqueness of place. Interiors are now finding a balance between the benefits of simple, functional design with the integration of a whole range of different art and design elements that speak of the history and experience of a place.