The Washington Reagan National Banjo
Plans are afoot to replace DCA's jet-age concourse
The Washington, D.C.-region is blessed with a surfeit of good, and in some cases iconic, airport architecture.
Eero Saarinen’s Washington Dulles main terminal is considered by many one of the most significant buildings of the 20th century (never mind it’s distance from the city). And Cesar Pelli’s Washington Reagan National Terminal 2 is a contemporary icon in the heart of many Washingtonians.
But the A Gates, aka the “banjo,” in National’s Terminal 1 is a mid-century gem that seldom gets its due. Designed by Giuliani Associates for Northwest Orient and Trans World Airlines in the late 1960s (opened June 1, 1970), the rotunda features floor-to-ceiling windows broken up by dominating concrete pillars that also feature as the entry to each of the concourse’s nine gates. The pillars rise to a soaring, streamlined ceiling that evokes the jet age like anything Saarinen designed.
I wrote about the banjo for Greater Greater Washington in 2018 but now, with National operator the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), planning to replace it with a new, modern concourse, I thought it was time to revisit the structure.
“The new terminal and concourse is a poured in place concrete structure,” Giuliani Associates’ says of the project on its website. “The concourse included self-contained loading bridges designed around the DC-9 and 727 aircraft … [and] is a clear span rotunda providing an open vista of the airfield.”
A succinct description to say the least.
The banjo’s jet age bonafides extend beyond just the architecture. It was built directly in response to the jump in passenger numbers at National after it was opened to jet aircraft in 1966.
“The problem of ground congestion is also being dealt with in several ways. The air carriers, at their own expense, have enlarged and improved the terminal facilities at Washington National,” FAA1 Administrator John Shafer told a Senate committee in May 1970. “With the opening of the new TWA/Northwest unit terminal on June 1, we will have realized a total 60 percent increase in terminal area in three years.”
Circular rotundas featured prominently — some better than others — in many airport designs of the 1960s and ‘70s. Chicago O’Hare’s Seven Continents Building by Gertrude Kerbis, Las Vegas McCarran’s cluster buildings, and Spokane’s concourse rotunda by Warren Heylman, for example.
“The newest terminal at National has Northwest’s Name on it!,” a 1971 Northwest Orient2 ad in The Washington Post proclaimed. “Its striking design, incorporating skylights and a circular boarding gate area, features lots of things to make your travels easier.”
The design, however, has proven less than ideal for contemporary air travel. Circular gate areas, while convenient for clustering aircraft into a small area, are often undersized for modern planes and lack much space for (lucrative) concessions. Hence they are rare in contemporary airport design.
National’s banjo, sadly, lost the “clear span rotunda” that Giuliani Associates described when a central dining space and lighting feature was added some years ago.
The concourse has also become overcrowded as aircraft have grown larger. Southwest Airlines, the largest user of the banjo today, operates on average of 155 seats per departure in July, according to schedules from aviation analytics firm Cirium Diio. The DC-9s and 727s that Giuliani Associates designed the banjo for in 1970? They sat around 100 to 130 passengers.
Air Canada and Frontier Airlines also use the banjo today.
Other additions to the banjo, like a new security checkpoint build adjacent to the original terminal connector, was a needed improvement that addressed post-9/11 checkpoint congestion.
Still, Giuliani Associates’ jet age design remains. The mid-century rotunda still greets fliers, eliciting the idea of flight in all its soaring concrete glory — even as air travel has changed around it.
But it may not greet travelers for much longer.
MWAA plans to replace the banjo with a “new 9-gate Terminal 1” facility, as it was described in a 2022 bond prospectus. A board presentation earlier this July noted that planning for the new concourse is due for completion by December.
The latest details suggest the new concourse would be built on the site of the former American Airlines concourse (opened 1966) that was demolished after Terminal 2 opened in 1997.
There is no question that, aesthetics aside, the banjo is functionally obsolete. Planes are larger, travelers spend more time at the gate and demand more of airport facilities than they did in 1970. And, even if MWAA wanted to preserve the structure, it’s location in the middle of the south ramp would make that challenging.
MWAA is also on a building spree. It completed a new concourse — fulfilling plans that dated to at least 1998 — and two new security checkpoints both designed by PGAL in 2021 as part of the $1 billion Project Journey expansion of Terminal 2 at Washington National. Work on an up to $800 million new concourse at Washington Dulles adjacent to the Concourse C AeroTrain station that replaces the ground-boarding Concourse A regional gates (designed by HOK and opened in 1999) is underway.
That leaves just the banjo and “temporary” Concourse C/D among aging terminal facilities to renew at MWAA’s two airports, Dulles and National.
My understanding is that MWAA, not Southwest who stands to benefit the most from a new Terminal 1 concourse at National, is driving the plans to replace the banjo.
The banjo, for all its shortcomings, is still an architecturally striking building of the long-past jet age. That alone deserves at least a second thought before its banished to the dustbin of history.
Notes from the Road
Denmark and cycling (and pastries) are synonymous in my mind. That’s why when my husband agreed to a cycling holiday with our two young boys this summer, we decided to go to Denmark. Over 10 days, we covered some 287 miles on bikes with trailers across Zealand and Samsø. I’m not going to say it was all easy — it wasn’t — but it was a blast, and Denmark is gorgeous.
What I’m Writing
The FAA decided in June to update the rules governing certain “public charter” flights. The move raises concerns that new standards could come at the expense of flights to small cities; at least 21 Essential Air Service markets are served with these public charter flights. (FlightGlobal)
Alaska, Delta, and United are leading U.S. airline profitability (so far) in the second quarter. That was expected, as I wrote in a second quarter earnings outlook at the beginning of July. (FlightGlobal)
Aeromexico to Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City, Tampa, and Washington Dulles; Austrian Airlines to Boston; and a new Seattle-Taipei options. All are routes airlines launched in July. (Travel + Leisure)
What I’m Reading
John King, the San Francisco Chronicle’s architecture critic, wrote a good piece on San Francisco International Airport and how it, seemingly uniquely among city departments gets stuff done. How? It’s own source of revenue that is net positive for the city budget certainly helps.
"SFO’s ability to stay one step ahead of the curve also illustrates a reality of government that’s too often ignored in the back-and-forth of American politics: When an agency has a clear goal and a focused chain of command, the payoff can be profound."
Did anyone else follow the Tour de France? It was quite a race with Tadej Pogacar a minute or so ahead of reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard and debutant Remco Evenepoel for the general classification for most of the Tour. By stage 19 he had seemingly locked down the GC, and rode into Nice on Sunday with the GC by 6:17 — and the first Tour-Giro double in decades.
Is Delta the “it girl” — the preferred carrier of the LGBTQ community — of U.S. airlines?
investigated in his recent piece for USA Today, and unabridged on his Substack, . My take is that loyalty depends a lot on where one lives.“Delta simply flies to and from places where there are a lot of gay people. If you examine the top 12 metropolitan cities by percentage of the population identifying as LGBTQ+, Delta has either a hub or a focus city — AKA a major presence — in six of the 12 locations, more than any other U.S. airline.”
What I’m Listening To
If you don’t listen to Slate’s Slow Burn, you should. The latest season is on something that I knew of but not really about: the proposition by California state Senator John Briggs in 1978 that would have banned gays and lesbians from working in public schools. It’s these fights that created the world LGBTQ individuals live in today. (For more, also listen to Slate’s One Year: 1977 episode on Anita Bryant)
The FAA operated Dulles and National airports on behalf of the federal government until the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority was created in 1985.
Northwest Orient became Northwest Airlines in 1986.