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Who would have thought that something as mundane as an airport could inspire such strong feelings?
When you have been sitting on an airplane for five hours or ten hours or however long and now you're going to sit in an airport comfort aesthetics are really really important.
It can feel like a very stressful experience and kind of a necessary evil so to speak like well I have to get somewhere and I have to go through an airport or two to get there.
It's all seamless security there's barely ever a line people are nice they're friendly it doesn't have that craziness that you usually associate with with airports.
I'm Izzy Lawrence and I must confess I was amazed by the volume of comments you posted when we asked you to share your experiences of airports from their beginnings as farmers fields to the modern day behemoths of glass and steel airports have come a long way in a mere 100 years or so.
So we're going to chart that evolution in this forum from the BBC World Service.
To do that I'm joined by three guests.
Alistair Gordon is a journalist commentator and author of many books including Naked Airport a cultural history of the world's most revolutionary structure.
Lilia Miranov is an architectural historian and author of Airport Aura a spatial history of airport infrastructure she's also a part-time air steward with the Swiss national airline.
And with me in the studio is Sue J. Rahman an airport planner architect and lecturer at the University of Westminster in London.
Picking up on our listener comments that we heard at the beginning of the program Alistair what's your take on why people get so excited about airports.
I think it's
because it's an inner place where all these very modern ideas suddenly intersect you know and we're confronted with the joys of travel and the emotions of leaving loved ones behind but also
because it's so high tech and there's so many new technologies that we haven't otherwise you know faced in our daily lives.
Sue how about you why do airports inspire such strong feelings do you think?
Because airports are the originating points of something really new the start of a new journey the start of a new adventure the excitement of visiting a new place so it's really crucial for airports to tap into and connect with the emotions of the passenger and become part of their journey their adventure and indeed part of their happy memories.
But Lillia as an air steward you must have seen the inside of hundreds of airports worldwide I mean do they still inspire you in some way?
Oh yes they do they doesn't mean they enchant me but they also alienate me and they stress me but I want to connect to what Alistair said
that airports are to me a gateway on an emotional level I'm originally from Bulgaria so airports have always been synonymous for me with a gateway to a new life prosperity sentimentality so that's my personal experience with airports.