Now Boarding at Gate Junkspace

I have spent a lot of time in airports over the years.  Big and small, Atlanta, O’Hare, to Newark and Greenville-Spartanburg.  I have some of my favorites (Denver and Detroit), and some that I really love to pass through (here’s looking at you Philadelphia, which always seems to have me depart from and arrive at the terminal undergoing construction).  The airport is a micro-city.  Or more realistically, a micro-island.  Everything in it gives the appearance of self-sustenance.  While it would be prohibitively expensive, one could probably live there for a time (ask Tom Hanks if he thinks that’s a good idea).  I want a beer? Check.  I want to buy some expensive electronics from a vending machine? Check. Without interacting with a person? Even better.  How about some designer fashions and duty-free liquor? Let’s get the airport party started.  The traveling businessman and tourist alike are bombarded with a sensory equivalent of a rail gun, jostling and weaving through the frantic traveler and embittered airport vendor alike.

This is what I imagine when I consider Koolhaas’ Junkspace and Auge’s concept of a non-place.  Auge refers to places that are insignificant enough to be determined a place as a non-place.  Not to say that an airport is itself insignificant, but that it is transitory enough to not have the occupant truly “dwell” there.  The airport itself is not the reason you go to the airport, regardless of how tasty the generic food may be.  The airport is a perfect example of a transient space, insignificant enough to visit on its own apart from the fact that its infrastructure serves to get you from point A to point B.  It is just a journey somewhere on the line.  And while there are some airports more pleasant than others – ways to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’, the airport is itself both Junkspace and a non-place; a Junk-non-space.