"Airports, Designed for Everyone but the Passenger"

"Roughly 40 years later, during a layover in Madrid’s airport, I started to think about Mr. Eno and how, by today’s standards, his complaint about airports and bad music almost seems quaint.

Airports have been drastically transformed since the 1970s, when you could smoke anywhere, stroll leisurely through security and hug your loved one at the gate before boarding the plane...

Passing through security these days takes forever and sometimes borders on harassment. The lighting is brighter than a World Series night game. Almost all the chairs have armrests, preventing you from splaying out. And the ambient noise — the endless gate changes, the last calls for boarding, the CNN late-breaking news — makes it almost impossible to relax...

Architects may need to spend more of their creative energies on the traveler’s experience than on creating an interactive postcard."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/travel/airport-architecture.html?contentCollection=weekendreads&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=c-column-middle-span-region&region=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region