Mobile Lounge

Although this month’s subject is not exactly legendary, it has been touched by greatness.

- Colin Ryan

The mobile lounge sounds like it ought to be some ornate trailer with lava lamps, plush cushions, and a well-stocked bar. Actually, it’s a glorified bus on stilts. It takes airline passengers from the terminal to their plane and vice versa. It might have become an integral part of modern-day travel if someone called Frank Der Yuen hadn’t come up with the extendable jet bridge.

Before the lounge and jet bridge came along, it was the mobile staircase emptying out onto the tarmac. That was romantic and all, watching celebrities wave from the plane’s doorway before descending to earth. Or walking up to this gigantic aluminum contraption that was going to send you 35,000 feet into the air and deposit you in another part of the world. But romance tends to evaporate with rain, wind, noise, and the smell of aviation fuel.

The mobile lounge was part of Eero Saarinen’s vision for Washington Dulles International Airport, whose main terminal he designed in 1958. This was the first-ever airport intended to handle jets, so Saarinen had no template, no frame of reference. He was creating one.