Just arrived in Germany and I thought I’d pen a couple of thoughts on Frankfurt Airport. This airport has a warm fuzzy spot in my heart. 22 years ago, I flew through this very airport alone on my way to the States. I remember very little about it, but I can’t help but be a little nostalgic about being here again.
Warm fuzzy memories aside though, I have not choice but to award this airport the Clusterfuck Schadenfreude Design Award of the Year. Back in Dallas, I was declaring my “love” and “admiration” for Terminal D at DFW Airport. I have to take it all back now. Compared to Frankfurt Airport, DFW’s Terminal D is progressive, hell it should be studied as a model of high traffic transport hub design, it should be hailed from on-high, festooned with gifts of gold and silver and all manner of shinyness… OK, I’ll stop, you get the idea.
Seriously, tell me again why I need to go through 2 full security checks, passport control and a tram station, within 200m! And I didn’t even leave the damned airport! Schadenfreude much? Or was someone just schizo about the arrival of a certain African? Gah!
On another note, I’ll be in Linz, Austria for the Ars Technica Cloud Intelligence conference talking about Africa’s Diaspora and our contribution to cloud intelligence. Don’t get it? Here’s an excerpt from published article I wrote on the matter, along with a link to the rest of it:
On February 20th 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti challenged Italy’s status quo by laying to white paper his generation’s blue print for an awakening. It was a stinging criticism of all that was, a violent cry for what could be but wasn’t, a generation’s trumpet call for all to shake off of a staid past and take on the responsibility of defining a new path. Italy had become too complacent with it’s rich history of accomplishments. The museums, centuries-old architecture, and dusty libraries – Marinetti was intent on destroying them all. He sent out a call for a new future defined by bold ideas, unapologetic disregard for tradition and the status quo, and a fully clenched punch into the gut of old-schoolism. F. T. Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto spawned a Futurist movement that left an indelible mark in every sector of European society from art to transportation to heavy industry. It was a campaign that defined an era. A defiant movement that crossed oceans and embedded itself all the way into mid-century America’s design culture. To Marinetti, Futurism celebrated industrialization, infrastructure, mechanization, militarism and the fiery beauty of machine-gunned speed.
Read more here..