Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
SOM to me is equivalent with captivating skyscrapers in the USA and Asia. But I started learning about and following SOM as an art historian after a layover in Jeddah in 2008. There, in the desert close to the Red Sea, next to the main airport, lies a vast tent-like structure, that for most of the year is deserted, the Hajj Terminal.
SOM is the acronym for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the Chicago Architecture firm, which among others designed Shanghai’s Jin Mao Tower, Singapore Changi Airport’s Terminal 3, Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport Terminal 3 (coincidence, there’s no intention with the number 3), San Francisco Airport’s International Terminal and many more skyscrapers, museums and government buildings. Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport Terminal 3 is the world’s most art-filled airport, with its own art curator. I have presented it in the blog post Come stroll with me.
Founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings, they merged in 1939 with John Merrill and later specialized in skyscrapers of the International Style. The world’s tallest buildings like the Hancock, Willis (formerly Sears) and Trump Towers in Chicago, One World Trade Center in New York and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai are part of the SOM brand. Now a global network with architectural offices in 50 countries, with many notable architects as partners (like David Childs and Adrian Smith who have their own respective architecture firms), SOM are one of the biggest architectural firms in the world.
SOM’s style is based on “Miesian” principles – large, sleek steel frameworks with glass panels, especially glass curtain walls. SOM are renowned for their “corporate signature urban buildings”. Starting with the International Style, their buildings, especially skyscrapers, have transformed and defined cityscapes. During the last two decades, SOM’s skyscrapers have turned into iconic beacons of postmodernism and supermodernism.
One of the most striking airport projects I have ever encountered is the Hajj Terminal of King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Through my airline work I had two memorable crew layovers in Jeddah of three nights, four days each. I remember the snorkeling in the turquoise waters of the Red Sea and the immensely strict wardrobe and social behavior laws for us females. Unfortunately, taking photographs is strictly forbidden, so the one illegally shot photograph I have of the Hajj Terminal is not really worthwhile and I have to use a public domain photograph.
The Hajj Terminal
The Hajj Terminal in Jeddah looks like a free-standing tent city on stilts. It is in operation only for six weeks per year for the Holy Month of Hajj, which is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which is close by. During that special time of the year the structure houses dozens of Jumbo Jets at its gates and offers camping and cooking facilities within its premises to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims. The Hajj Terminal is located next to the King Abdul Aziz International Airport of Jeddah.
The Hajj Terminal was completed in 1981. The American structural engineer and architect Fazlur Khan, whose roots originated in present-day Bangladesh, was SOM’s main asset when it came to complex tubular designs and high-rises, and he was the structural engineer for such buildings as the Sears (Willis) and Hancock Towers, as well as the Hajj Terminal.
It was the world’s largest cable-stayed, fabric-roofed structure. The facility has two identical roofed halves — each 1,050 feet by 2,250 feet — separated by a landscaped central mall. The Teflon-coated fiberglass roof structure consists of 210 semi-conical fabric roof units. Each module is supported by 45-meter-tall steel pylons and further supported with steel cables along the rooftop. At the top of the pylons are openings, so that the air can circulate and smoke from camping fires can easily escape.
The fiberglass of the roof was made of Beta yarn which is finer than silk but has the strength of steel. The Teflon coating deflects the heat of the sunlight. Arriving passengers pass through the first half of the terminal which contains air-conditioned buildings where health and immigration facilities, baggage claim, and customs are housed. The second half is a vast, open-sided temperate waiting- and support area where travelers are given rest, water, shade, and food.
The famous teflon fabric roof was developed by Khan together with engineer Horst Berger who got his inspiration from Frei Otto’s pioneering tensile structures. The latter had been influenced by Pier Luigi Nervi’s large-span structures such as the Palazzetto dello Sport (1960) which in itself is a form of biomimicry – the conscious emulation of nature’s genius.
The tensile teflon roof of the Hajj terminal was re-imagined by Horst Berger and architect Curtis Fentress for the Denver International Airport in 1995, which is presented in its own blog post here.
Fazlur Khan had inherited knowledge of the vernacular culture of the Orient. The Hajj Terminal’s roof structure is reminiscent of the Bedouin culture of the region, mimicking their tents. It offers space to 80,000 pilgrims at any day during its operation, allowing them to cultivate their traditions, to camp on the premises and light campfires. These pilgrims spend between eight and 36 hours on the premises before or after their arrival. Some of them have been on a voyage or a plane for the first time in their lives. Some of them travel in groups of (only male) family or congregation members and they appropriate the space for their religious rites. That is the purpose of this special place.
This is an exceptional airport in the sense that for around 46 weeks per year it is not in use and remains empty. When in use, during the Hajj pilgrimage, it performs as a multifunctional cultural site, a temporary religious infrastructure. The abundance of columns and the airy site confer references to Lefebvre’s architecture of enjoyment within the Roman thermal baths.
There are certain parallels to Norman Foster’s Droneport project which he presented at the Architectural Biennale in Venice in 2016. The ephemeral and social use of aviation infrastructure in a desert climate is indeed unique and turns this into an airport event architecture.
Sources:
Featured Image: Hajj Terminal, Jeddah Airport.
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Hajj_terminal_at_Jeddah_Airport.jpeg
Attribution: UR-SDV (GFDL <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html> or GFDL <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html>), via Wikimedia Commons
Additional Image of Hajj Terminal, Jeddah Airport: Hajj Terminal, courtesy of Yousefmadari at ml.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haj_terminal.jpg
Anne-Catrin Schultz, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, International Terminal, San Francisco International Airport, 2008.
Simone Korein, Landen unter Zelten. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Haj Terminal, Jeddah, Archithese, 2002.
Michael Pawlyn, Biomimicry in Architecture, 2011.
Categories: Airports
