Airworld opens with a lengthy quote from Andy Warhol extolling the virtues of air travel, from the food service to the security checks, which ends by iden­ti­fy­ing the key theme of the ex­hib­i­tion. ‘Airplanes and airports have,’ Warhol says, ‘the best optimism.’

This almost giddy, gleeful aspect to the design of aircraft, airports and the ephemera of flying is apparent from the industry’s birth.

Sometimes, this optimism is utopian in scope - in 1925, Henri Defrasse, seeking a solution to the limited range of con­tem­por­ary boat planes, dreamt up his Ile Flottant, a mid-Atlantic oasis of calm, part fuelling station, part resort. Taking a different tack, the mock-ups for Colani’s Megalodon ‘plane promise the de­mo­crat­isa­tion of in­ter­con­t­in­ent­al travel in a style that is half sci-fi, half Soviet. At other times, it is the sort of fingers-crossed optimism that su­per­sti­tious flyers turn to at the moment of take-off, as seen in the earliest designs for aircraft seating, woven wicker affairs that turn po­ten­ti­ally perilous flight into an outdoorsy diversion before lunch at the country house.

Indeed, for all its sleek futurism, aviation design seems rooted in re­as­sur­ance, taking forms that either distract the passenger or coddle him.

Joe Colombo’s tableware designs from the early 1970s are revealing. A porcelain set for the 1st class cabin makes no con­ces­sions to its en­vir­on­ment, beside a vaguely modern aspect, yet his designs for second class are in­nov­at­ive stackable trays in which com­pon­ents interlock - besides the economic factors behind these twin designs, the first uses familiar materials and forms to suggest normality, the second are almost os­ten­t­a­tiously ‘designed’ in order to hint at rigourous ef­fi­ci­ency. Fast-forward to the imminent future, and the concept model for the Skysleep­er­ Solo, a seat intended for first class flyers on Japan Airlines is a double-wide parody of comfort, complete with an in­stru­ment panel to select en­ter­tain­ment options more complex than the pilot’s console in a DC-10 - more than luxurious excess, this is an attempt to place control in the hands of the passenger.

These two optimisms also filter down to pro­mo­tion­al materials, and show a shift over time. Early posters focus on the aircraft, to an almost military degree: in one ad­ver­t­is­ment for BEA, a stylised ‘plane is shown banking sharply, as if lining up to strafe an enemy airfield. By the launch of Boeing’s 747, the focus has shifted to the interior, with pas­sen­gers shown, as they are today, deep in re­lax­a­tion, or working un­in­ter­rup­ted. Early ticket’s and boarding passes are in­dis­t­in­guish­able from those issued for travel on land or see, but before long airline Braniff In­ter­n­a­tion­al is present­ing pas­sen­gers with colour co­ord­in­ated cards with stark ty­po­graphy under the slogan ‘The end of the plain plane’, ex­chan­ging an image of stolid safety for one of forward-looking glamour. At the same time, branded match­books and a packet of ci­gar­et­tes bearing the BEA logo show the give and take between the need for an illusion of in­vul­n­er­ab­il­ity and passenger pro­tec­tion.

The uniforms of airline staff are more revealing still. The earliest designs for ste­w­ard­esses uniforms are starched and soldierly, before morphing, in ac­cord­ance with mid-century ste­r­eo­types, into glamorous, mini-skirted, almost fet­ish­ist­ic de­sign­er­wear, only to return to a sober, practical and pro­fes­sion­al look by the 1980s. Again, this is design led by a need to distract or reassure.

On the ar­chi­tec­tur­al front there is a slightly different divide. A display of maquettes pitches Foster & Partners work on London Stanstead against Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal at JFK. The former is simply fun­c­tion­al, the latter an ar­chi­tec­tur­al statement that gives no clue to its function, seemingly designed as a vast ad­ver­t­ise­ment to be viewed from above.

This is an often fas­cin­at­ing tour through a specific design history, then, but it’s also hard work. Sure, there are witty touches to the exhibit - some displays feature viewing platforms modelled after aeroplane stair­cases - and, thank­fully, no in­form­a­tion is hidden away inside the in­ter­act­ive touch-screen kiosks that mar many a design show. But Airworld errs in the other direction, opting for a cool, dry, museum-like present­a­tion that seems unlikely to engage anyone without a keen interest in design. There are omissions too. Little mention is made of the boom in cut-price air travel and its impact on design - the enforced jollity of Easyjet’s day-glo orange livery, say - and nothing on the en­vir­on­ment­al impact of that boom, a problem which must in part be solved by improved aircraft design. The wall texts fall short too, sometimes fore­groun­d­ing the social role of design, sometimes drifting too far into tech­n­ic­al­it­ies, and too often present­ing objects without much in the way of context. In other words, Airworld falls between two stools, failing the design fan with its overly ambitious attempt to cover every aspect of aviation design, and failing the novice by assuming existing knowledge.

This review was first published in The Herald on May 4th, 2007.