San Francisco International Airport

Art Deco on exhibit at SFO Airport

Airports, Art, Exhibits, Museums, , ,
SFO airplane cocktail shaker

Airplane cocktail shaker, 1930s. Courtesy SFO Museum

 

A new exhibition at San Francisco International Airport displays fashionable and everyday items that evoke the Art Deco era, from works by French sculptors to airline-shaped cocktail shakers and streamlined radios.

SFO Deco radio

Art Deco Bakelite radio, 1930 Courtesy SFO Museum

Need a quick quick recap on Art Deco?

The exhibition notes tell us that this design style popular in the 1920s and ’30s was ‘dynamic and modern’ and exuded ‘glamour, pleasure, and escape,’ drawing inspiration from the mechanized world but also upon historic European styles, ancient and distant cultures, and contemporary avant-garde art. Art Deco permeated all mediums, including fine art, sculpture, architecture, interior design, furnishings, fashion, graphic design and mass-produced goods and we’ve got some great examples here Life and Style in the Age of Art Deco exhibition the SFO Museum has put together at San Francisco International Airport Terminal 3, Boarding Area F (post-security) through August 16, 2015.

SFO deco compacts

Assorted Art Deco compacts and eye shadow containers. Courtesy SFO Museum

 

(All photos courtesy of SFO Museum)

SFO Woman petting gazelle

Woman petting a gazelle c. 1930s Pierre Le Faguays (pseudonym: Fayral. Courtesy SFO Museum

Spas at O’Hare & free ice-cream for Virgin America passengers

Food, Free Stuff, Spas, , , , ,

Good news for anyone who finds themselves stuck at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

There are now full-service spas in the domestic terminals.

ORD SPA

Terminal Getaway Spa, which already has a branch at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), has opened two branches at O’Hare: one in Terminal 1 near Gate B14 and another in Terminal 3 near Gate H1.

A third branch is scheduled to open this spring in the H/K Corridor, near the American Airlines Admirals Club.

Services on the menu include manicures, pedicures, massages and more.

And, if you’re flying on Virgin America out of San Francisco between March 4- June 30, you can get free ice-cream – on the ground.

VIrgin America Ice cream

As part of a roll-out for the new menu for first-class passengers on the airline’s long-haul business flights between San Francisco and Los Angeles to Newark, New York, Boston and Washington National Airport, the airline is offering travelers in any cabin a free scoop of Humphry Slocombe’s ice cream.

The San Francisco-based ice-cream maker has whipped up three ice cream flavors for Virgin American – Butter By Moodlight, Red-Hot Banana and Coconut Blond Ambition – and Virgin America is inviting the public to vote via Twitter on which should be the airline’s signature flavor served on board.

Free tastings took place at San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 20, but from March 4 – June 30, anyone showing a Virgin America boarding pass at either of the Humphry Slocombe’s two San Francisco locations (The Ferry Building & Mission) can get a free scoop.

In addition to the new first-class menu, Virgin America is also updating its First Class service settings with hot towel and linen table service available on all flights.

Airline, airport monitor unique Chinese passenger

Events, Exhibits, , , ,

Imagine seeing this at San Francisco International Airport:

SFO WARRIOR

To promote the Terracotta Warriors exhibit at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, an actor dressed like a warrior had been “lost” in the Bay Area and the community’s help was sought in finding him.

Now that the exhibit is over, it was time for the lost warrior – and the ten life-size terracotta figures from the army of over 7,000 figures that guarded the tomb of a Chinese emperor- to go home to Xi’an, China.

As part of the send-off for the figures, on Friday Cathay Pacific, the airport and the museum live tweeted photos of the journey of the Lost Warrior as he arrived at the airport, checked-in for his flight, checked out some of the SFO Museum exhibits, waited at the gate and settled into his Premium Economy seat.

SFO Warrior MUSEUM EXHIBITS

SFO Warrior on plane

They even made a Vine video of the warrior hanging out in the Cathay Pacific lounge.

Thanks to the SFO Museum, Cathay Pacific, SFO Airport and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco for sharing the images of a fun and very creative send-off at the airport.

Exhibition of souvenirs at San Francisco International Airport

Exhibits, Museums, Souvenirs,

Souvenirs: Tokens of Travel, January 2013?June 2013

Tokens of travel come in all forms: from photos and hotel keys to shells, rocks, postcards and handcrafted or mass-produced souvenirs.

Keep that in mind as you enjoy the new SFO Museum exhibition at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) filled with mementos from the nineteenth century to the present, including sailors’ valentines, world’s fair souvenirs, miniature monuments, transfer ware and ruby-stained glass.

The exhibit fills twenty exhibit case in the north end of the International Terminal and will be on display through July, 2013.

Here are some samples:

Souvenirs: Tokens of Travel, January 2013 -June 2013

Souvenirs: Temple of Vesta c. 1860. Italy; Painting of Mount Vesuvius and Bay of Naples at night, late 1800s; Temple of Castor and Pollux c. 1860, Italy

Souvenirs: Tokens of Travel, January 2013–June 2013

Sailors’ Valentine: Shell mosaic c. 1870. Barbados
Courtesy of The Strong, Rochester, New York

(All photos courtesy of the SFO Museum)

SFO Museum exhibit profiles China’s Civil Air Transport (CAT)

Airlines, Exhibits, , , ,

There’s a intriguing gem of an exhibition at the Louis A. Turpin Aviation Museum and Library in the lobby of the International Terminal at San Francisco International Airport.

With more than 150 objects and images, Civil Air Transport: Asia’s Airline of Distinction looks at early flight in China and Civil Air Transport (CAT), the airline that relocated to Taiwan in 1950 after the fall of the Nationalist Government on the mainland and became a secret operating division of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), operating as Air America over two decades.

You can see the exhibition in SFO’s Aviation Library and Museum through April 2013, or view some of the objects and photographs online here.

Photos courtesy SFO Museum

Sleeping beauties: fresh art at SFO Airport

Art, Exhibits, ,

Headrest 20 th century: Southeastern Shona or Tsonga peoples, Zimbabwe and Mozambique wood; Fowler Museum at UCLA; The Jerome L. Joss Collection; Courtesy SFO MUSEUM

Next time you’re at the airport look around at all the sleepy people who would probably give anything for a place to rest their heads.

Too bad they can’t open the exhibit cases in the new Sleeping Beauties exhibit at San Francisco International Airport featuring headrests from around the world.

“People all over the world spend nearly one-third of their lives sleeping, employing some type of pillow when resting. From ancient periods to modern times, humans have made rigid pillows from a wide variety of materials, including stone, clay, wood, and bamboo. Headrests were once a staple of domestic furniture, not only in many parts of Africa, but also in Asia and Oceania. Within the constraints of their size and shape, these intimate objects reflect the aesthetics of their respective cultures and function in symbolic as well as utilitarian ways. From Zairian and Melanesian figurative, wooden headrests to Chinese delicately glazed porcelain and Japanese rattan-woven pillows, a variety of headrests are on display.”

Headrest 19 th–mid-20 th century; Imbuando peoples, Lower Sepik, Papua New Guinea wood, cane; Fowler Museum at UCLA; The Jerome L. Joss Collection: Courtesy SFO Museum

Sleeping Beauties: Headrests from the Fowler Museum at UCLA is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport through December, 2012.

Sleep tight.

Souvenir Sunday at San Francisco International Airport

Shopping, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs

 

What’s there to do when you’re stuck at the airport?

You can eat, sleep, fret, read a book, take care of some paperwork, answer some email and, of course, shop for souvenirs.

At San Francisco International Airport I recently found these oh-so-San Francisco stickers. And they are my pick for this week’s Souvenir Sunday item:

Next time you’re at the airport, take a moment to poke around the shops. If you find a souvenir that’s inexpensive (about $10), offbeat and “of” the city or region, please snap a photo and send it along to StuckatTheAirport.com. If your photo is featured on a future Souvenir Sunday post, I’ll send you a travel-related souvenir.

 

(Above: The Traveler, by Duane Hanson, at Orlando International Airport)

SFO Museum celebrates Flying Clipper Ships

Exhibits, ,

The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport has put out the first of a three-part video series titled Clipper Glory: The Dawn of Ocean Air Transport.

Museum curator John Hill has assembled oral histories and period still photographs to celebrate the 1st Cross-Ocean scheduled passenger flight, which took place in April, 1937.

Be sure to take a look…

Stress-busting yoga room opens at San Francisco Int’l Airport

Health,

Many of the cranky and stressed-out travelers delayed by bad weather at San Fransisco International Airport on Monday could have used a bit of time out in the airport’s newest amenity: the world’s first and only dedicated yoga room, located just past the security checkpoint in Terminal 2.

SFO’s Yoga Room officially opens on Thursday, but the doors are open now, so don’t be shy about giving it a whirl.They’ve even got some loaner mats there in the corner.

When you’re blissed out and ready to go, take a moment fire up your smartphone and download 22 short podcast descriptions of the great art you’ll notice scattered around the airport.

Italian motorcycles at San Francisco International Airport

Art, Museums, , ,

Here’s another great offering from the folks at the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport:

Italian motorcycles from the 1950s and 1960s.

175cc CSS Super Sport "Disco Volante" 1955



“Nineteen motorcycles, ranging from singularly produced racers such as Carlo Ubbiali’s 1951 Mondial 125cc Bialbero Grand Prix to 50cc production bikes from the late 1960s, demonstrate that while necessity breeds invention, the results can be truly stunning.”

Stunning indeed..

125cc Turismo 1951 FB Mondial (1948–79), Milan, Italy

Moto Bellissima: Italian Motorcycles from the 1950s and 1960s is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport. The exhibition will be there through April 28, 2012.