San Francisco Airport Museums Presents 2001: Building for Space Travel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Jane Sullivan
Manager Marketing and Communications
(650) 821-5123
SF-02-69

San Francisco Airport Museums Presents 2001: Building for Space Travel

SAN FRANCISCO – From the reality of NASA’s frequent Space Shuttle launches to the fantasy of nightly science-fiction television programs, space exploration holds a prominent place in both our physical and cultural lives. A current exhibition at San Francisco International Airport, 2001: Building for Space Travel, examines the history of the machines that have made space travel possible, as well as the role culture has played in shaping architecture and design for space travel and exploration.

Through models, photographs, drawings, posters and items of space equipment, the exhibition demonstrates how cultural influences from art, myth, and literature to politics, film, and television have shaped our ideas about architecture and design for space. Additionally, the exhibition illustrates the contributions that architects and designers have made to space exploration. Through the interweaving of these two themes, the exhibition intends to remind visitors that what designers have done for real space travel and what they have imagined for science and fiction are products of a continuing interrelationship between science and art.

The exhibition includes approximately 100 objects, including a space suit, large-scale models of Ariane 4 and 5 launch vehicles, and a model of Deep Space Nine for the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

2001: Building for Space Travel was co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington. The exhibition is on view at the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum through January 2003. Located pre-security on the Departures/Ticketing Level of the International Terminal, SFO, the Library and Museum is open Sunday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed Saturdays and holidays. Admission is free of charge.

The San Francisco Airport Museums

The San Francisco Airport Museums program was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. Today, the San Francisco Airport Museums features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, a permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation.

S - F - O