Designed by Eero Saarinen and Associates, completed 1962 Chantilly, Virginia This airport, located 28 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., was conceived as the international gateway to the nation’s capi tal. President Eisenhower made the final site selection in 1958, and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) commissioned Eero Saarinen and Associates to build the first American airport designed specifically to handle jet Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture 712 airplanes. In a quirk of timing, this symbol of international welcome was named for Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, the bellicose point man for America’s Cold War policies before his death in 1959. The airport design was innovative on several counts, including its automobile traffic pattern (with separate levels for arrivals, departures, and parking) and its controversial “mobile lounges,” which detach from the main terminal building to ferry passengers out to airplanes parked next to the runways. In 1962 t...