Air travel has influenced the architecture and design of our century to a perhaps even greater degree than the automobile. This lavishly illustrated, expertly researched book traces the history of that influence, examining the development of airports around the world, as well as such related building types and topics as aircraft factories, maintenance hangars, notable airplane designs, and airline corporate imagery. Written by experts from Britain, Germany, Holland, and the U.S. - among them a pilot of thirty years' international flying experience - the essays in this volume discuss all these developments, together with the legal and financial role played in them by local and national government. The illustrations throughout the book encompass everything from plans and corporate identity designs to documentary photographs and computer renderings.