CHAIR OF ARCHITECTURE
AND URBAN DESIGN —
PROF. KEES CHRISTIAANSE

AIRPORTS AND CITIES

Forthcoming publication, to be published in 2017

Since 2010, the Professorship of Kees Christiaanse works on the theme of Airports and Cities, investigating urban patterns in airport areas (“Better Airport Regions” project 2012-2014), or probing visions and discourses connected to airports (PhD research on Paris airports 2014-2017). In 2017, the book “The Noise Landscape” will be published with nai010 publishers, presenting some major outcomes of this research.

The book examines the emerging phenomenon of landscapes affected by aviation and its related infrastructure, looking at the areas around the Airports of Amsterdam, Paris Charles-de-Gaulle and Orly, Frankfurt, Munich, London Heathrow, Madrid Bajaras and Zurich. Through the emissions of planes and the according regulations, these airports produce “Noise Landscapes” around them: areas of considerable size – often much larger than the municipalities of the mother city – that harbour special forms of urbanity. 

The eight Noise Landscapes are portrayed and theorized in the publication through five distinct explorations. While the first chapter explores the technical and legal determinants leading to the emergence of Noise Landscapes, the functions that settle in these restricted but globally connected areas are mapped in the second chapter. In the third chapter, the spatial experience at the human scale is explored through photography series. Complemented by two chapters that explore questions of urban morphology and policy, the publication concludes with a final chapter that provides a number of associations of the phenomenon of the Noise Landscape with different study fields and points at possible implication of these hypermodern spaces for architecture, urban design and urban research.

Authors:

Dr. Benedikt Boucsein 

Prof. Kees Christiaanse

Dr. Christian Salewski

Eirini Kasioumi

Contact: Benedikt Boucsein