The TWA Flight Center (also known as the Trans World Flight Center or TWA Terminal) is a building at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Queens, New York, United States. Designed by Eero Saarinen and Associates for Trans World Airlines (TWA), the building was completed in 1962 and operated as an airport terminal for four decades. The building's main section, the headhouse, was repurposed as part of the TWA Hotel in 2019. The headhouse is flanked by two towers added for the hotel and is partially surrounded by Terminal 5 (T5), a terminal for JetBlue.
The headhouse has a thin shell concrete roof, shaped like a set of bird's wings and supported by four Y-shaped piers. Inside is an open, three-level space with large windows; the windows overlooked the tarmac before Terminal 5 and the TWA Hotel's towers were built. The TWA Flight Center also includes two tube-shaped, red-carpeted departure and arrival corridors extending outward from the headhouse. These formerly connected to the TWA Flight Center's detached "flight wings", which contained the gates. The flight wings were demolished and the corridors were truncated in the 2000s, during the development of Terminal 5.
Saarinen's firm was hired to design the TWA Flight Center as part of a 1955 master plan for Idlewild (now JFK) Airport. After years of design and modeling work, construction began in June 1959, and the TWA Flight Center was dedicated on May 28, 1962. It originally had one flight wing; Roche-Dinkeloo, a successor firm to Saarinen's company, designed a second flight wing, which opened in 1970. Various other additions took place over the years, and domestic flights were moved to the Sundrome in 1981. After TWA sold its assets to American Airlines in 2001, the terminal closed. There were proposals to refurbish the original structure as an entrance to T5 (which opened in 2008), but they were ultimately abandoned. As part of the TWA Hotel's construction, the headhouse was renovated, and the two hotel wings were constructed, opening in 2019. The original design was widely acclaimed; the interior and the exterior of the headhouse are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Architecture
The TWA Flight Center, designed by Eero Saarinen and Associates, is centered on a headhouse consisting of a reinforced concrete shell roof. The design incorporates elements of the Futurist, Neo-futurist, Googie, and Fantastic architectural styles. Key collaborators from the Saarinen office included Kevin Roche, Cesar Pelli, Norman Pettula, and Edward Saad. The interiors were largely designed by Warren Platner. To engineer the roof, Saarinen collaborated with Charles S. Whitney and Boyd G. Anderson of the firm Ammann & Whitney. The project involved Grove Shepherd Wilson & Kruge as the general contractor; the Arup Group as the structural engineer; Langan as the civil engineer; and Jaros, Baum & Bolles as the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineer. It was one of several airport terminals Saarinen designed, along with the Dulles Main Terminal in Virginia and Ellinikon International Airport near Athens, Greece.
The headhouse sits on a curve along one of JFK Airport's access roads, near the elevated AirTrain JFK people mover tracks. The headhouse's form was designed to accommodate its small wedge-shaped site, with walkways and gates arranged at acute angles. Radiating from the headhouse are two departure–arrival passenger tubes, the "Flight Tubes", extending southeast and northeast. The TWA Flight Center was among the first to use enclosed passenger jetways, which connected with flight wings (structures with airline gates). The jetways provided shelter from inclement weather and removed the need to walk on the ground to reach planes.
When the headhouse was used as a terminal, there were a parking lot and a passenger canopy outside the front entrance. Adjoining the headhouse to the east is JetBlue's Terminal 5 (T5), built in 2008 to designs by Gensler. T5's entry hall wraps around the TWA Flight Center's headhouse. The original headhouse has, since 2019, served as a lobby for TWA Hotel, which includes two buildings designed by Lubrano Ciavarra Architects. There is a valet parking lot for the hotel outside the headhouse's entrance, along with a nearby parking garage for T5 that connects with the AirTrain JFK station.
Exterior
The TWA Flight Center's headhouse is a two-story structure. The main portion of the headhouse's facade is made of green-tinted glass walls measuring thick and spanning . The facade consists of 236 pieces of glass, which were cut on site during construction. These walls allowed passengers inside to visualize planes landing, taxiing, unloading, loading, and taking off. They were coated with a dark purple mylar film at some point before 2005. A canopy extends outward from the headhouse, covering part of the sidewalk.
Single-story annexes extend outward from the headhouse to the north and south and contain several door openings within the concave walls. Inside these annexes are maintenance areas. The TWA Flight Center also had its own control tower, from which TWA staff could see planes on the apron. The tower had control systems and monitors that allowed staff to display flight information in the headhouse. Although the original design included a heliport, it never saw regular use outside the 1964 New York World's Fair.
Roof
The roof was designed to span a wide space using as little material as possible. It is composed of two upward-slanting concrete shells at the edges, which resemble birds' wings, and two smaller shells slanting downward toward the front and back of the structure. The upward-slanting shells reach up to above ground level. The shells converge at the center, where each of the four shells supports the others. Four Y-shaped piers support the roof, facing the front and back;Leubkeman, Christopher Hart. "Form Swallows Function" in these measure tall by long. Skylights are placed within the gaps between the shells. The roof weighs , covering about . The concrete varies in thickness from at the edges to at the convergence of the four shells. The roof shells are cantilevered by up to and contain steel reinforcement to accommodate the roof's weight. The main entrance is on the land side, where the roof projects over a sidewalk (formerly a driveway) with a scupper.
When the TWA Flight Center was erected, thin-shell concrete roofs could not be built in other parts of New York City due to building code restrictions. The roof could be built only because the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was exempt from city building codes. The shape of the roof recalled that of the Chevrolet Impala's "gull wing", developed by General Motors, for which Saarinen had designed the GM Technical Center.
Interior The TWA Flight Center incorporated many innovations for its time, including closed-circuit television, a central public address system, baggage carousels, a schedule board, baggage scales, and gates that were distant from the headhouse. TWA staff received instructions through a pneumatic tube system. Departing and arriving passengers at the TWA Flight Center were not separated into their own areas, a common practice at other airport terminals. A writer for The American Scholar magazine said the overall layout acted like a grand procession, with passengers ascending from the entrance. Passengers continued from the headhouse to the flight wings, two outlying gate structures detached from the headhouse. The historian Alice T. Friedman said the design allowed occupants to both engage in activities (such as sitting down or observing planes) and to watch others partake in the same activities. According to the writer Kornel Ringli, the interior's curving shape created an impression of movement and speed, which was then amplified in popular media.
Headhouse
The headhouse spans , with a width of and a length of at ground level. There are two full stories: an upper level and a lower level. An intermediate level, facing east, is joined to the lower level by a central staircase and to the upper level by four peripheral staircases. The interior uses concrete in design details such as desks, seats, and the flight information display; these concrete surfaces not only served as a continuation of the exterior but also demonstrated the malleability of the material. The interior uses almost 58 million ceramic tiles, which line the walls and floors, visually complementing the headhouse's concrete surfaces. As part of the TWA Hotel's development, the original headhouse's interior was converted into the hotel's lobby, retail, and amenity area, with restaurants and the hotel's reception desk. TWA-related objects, such as posters and uniforms, are exhibited there.
The lower level contains the former ticket counter and baggage claim areas. These areas, situated in distinct wings flanking a central entrance lobby, were placed near the curbside canopy to maximize convenience for passengers. A sculpted marble information desk, carved as a single slab, rises from the lobby floor, and a split-flap display by Solari originally displayed flight information. When the terminal was in operation, arriving passengers picked up their luggage at carousels next to the entrance, which traveled at . The lower level also had computerized baggage scales and conveyor belts. There are also mechanical, service, and office areas in a partial basement under the intermediate level, as well as a tunnel leading to the former Flight Wing 1. The TWA Hotel operates a event area in the basement.
Twelve steps from the lower level ascend about to the intermediate level. There is a sunken conversation pit on the intermediate level, which faces east and originally overlooked a tarmac. Although the original conversation pit had been removed by the 1990s, it was recreated as part of the TWA Hotel. In addition, by the early 1990s, a switchback ramp had been added between the lower level and the intermediate level to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. There is also an elliptical plaque commemorating Saarinen.
A concrete balcony on the upper floor spans above the central staircase that connects the lower floor to the intermediate level. The upper floor had multiple eateries. The TWA operated its Ambassador Club on the northern portion of the upper floor (left of the entrance), designed by Saarinen Associates. The southern (right) portion of the upper floor contained the London Bar & Constellation Club, the Lisbon Lounge, and the Paris Café, all designed by Raymond Loewy. There were also offices on the upper level, north and south of the public areas. A three-sided clock, dating from 1963, hangs from the center of the ceiling, where the rooftop shells converge. The clock was not part of the original plans, but it was retained when the building became part of the TWA Hotel.
Passageways
The two passageways, leading from the headhouse's intermediate level, are completely enclosed and cross an access roadway. The passageway leading southeast was called Flight Tube 2, while the passageway leading northeast was called Flight Tube 1. The tubes originally led to the flight wings and are higher at the site of the flight wings than at the headhouse. Flight Tube 1 is about long while Flight Tube 2 is long. Following the opening of the TWA Hotel, the tubes connect the headhouse to the guestrooms; Flight Tube 1 leads to the hotel's Saarinen wing, and Flight Tube 2 leads to the Hughes wing. The ends of the flight tubes contain mockups of Saarinen's and Hughes's offices, and the end of Flight Tube 1 also has an elevator connecting directly to JetBlue's Terminal 5.