Proposes Orientable Roof-Top Airports For Cities (Jul, 1938)
It sure would screw up your property value if someone tried to build a billion ton sky-darkening airport over your house. Also I’m not quite sure why it needs to rotate…. bonus feature?
Proposes Orientable Roof-Top Airports For Cities
PROPOSED as a solution to the problem of locating an airport in the heart of any big city, a design for a long orientable runway, which would be mounted on circular tracks atop tall buildings, as sketched above, has been conceived by a French engineer.
By rotating the runway they can point the planes into the prevailing wind, which means a shorter take-off distance, which has obvious benefits when space is limited.
I’m interested in the identity of the “French engineer” – Le Corbusier (who was actually Swiss) was fascinated with planes and had conceptual plans integrating them with his skyscraper-dominated cities – aircraft literally flying off the tops of buildings and landing on others, an idea which has probably lost its appeal in recent years.
It does have a le Corbusier look about it
[...] was more directly informed, after Burnham, by early 20th century epic proposals to build airports, not just way stations for blimps but humongous concrete surfaces filled with winged vuvuzelas, in [...]
[...] was more directly informed, after Burnham, by early 20th century epic proposals to build airports, not just way stations for blimps but humongous concrete surfaces filled with winged vuvuzelas, in [...]