Alexandra Lange
Architecture & design critic

JetBlue Terminal 5 (and TWA Terminal)

The interim logo for JetBlue’s new Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy Airport showed the abbreviation T5 rising like a phoenix behind the iconic roofline of Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA Terminal. The graphic expressed a literal truth: the new $743 million, 26-gate terminal sits directly behind TWA, embracing it with a series of gently curved roadways and a façade of dark gray steel and glass. It also expressed the hopes of many in the preservation community that TWA (or at least its spectacular reinforced-concrete symbol) would live, making flying seem as glamorous as it had in the 1960s, when jet travel was a breathless innovation.