ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how planners and architects incorporate the types of installations into terminals at airports such as Vancouver’s YVR, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi, Delhi’s Indira Gandhi, and Taipei’s Taoyuan International. It discusses the types of identities represented by designs placed near the terminal’s commercial areas as well as its border zones. Architecture, artworks, and interior designs that refer to the airport’s region primarily function as symbols when they convey place-themed connotations. YVR’s place-themed design has caught the attention of other airport authorities, and this has resulted in more contracts for the airport’s architects. The artworks installed in the arrivals area at YVR’s International Terminal speak to the passage from the ‘no man’s land’ on the airside of the terminal to the state of Canada on the landside. Architects and planners incorporate place-themed installations into air terminal interiors since they believe that the designs will evoke a sense of place and generate passenger spending.
