People who travel by air spend many long hours in airports, and although after a while, one terminal begins to look much like another, several basic designs have evolved over time. These changes have been partly in response to the growing number of passengers and associated increased airplane size which, in its own right has helped draw more passengers to air travel.
The earliest airports were really not airports at all. Rather, they provided a way for spectators to watch the air shows that became so popular early in the 20th century. The "aerodrome" consisted of a grassy area where planes could take off and land, hangars for servicing and storing planes, and observation stands. The field near Reims, France, where one of the earliest air meets took place in 1909, illustrates this type of facility. Some of these airfields also housed the earliest airplane factories.
In Europe during World War I, military requirements led to the construction of airfields, but there were few provisions for passengers, since, for the most part, there were none. After the war ended, commercial airlines began to share the military airfields and either built new facilities for passengers and passport and customs control or converted existing hangars to those uses. At Le Bourget, near Paris, commercial aviation set up on one side of the airfield where the military had vacated. Le Bourget was both one of the earliest commercial airports and one of the first to have a building dedicated to commercial aviation, known later as a "terminal" but then as an "air station" or "airway station." This terminal and others in Europe and America resembled train stations, and hangars resembled train sheds. Airplane interiors also resembled Pullman rail cars. All of this was an effort to assure passengers that there was really nothing strange and new about traveling by air.
One of the earliest airports was at Croyden, which opened in 1920 eleven miles from London at a site that had been used by the Royal Air Force and the National Aircraft Factory. Croyden served as the new "air port" of London, as well as the "customs port" of the country. Its two-story administration building, built in 1926-1928, was the largest terminal of its time. Croyden also had the first control tower, which the Air Ministry compared to the "bridge" on a battleship and the "traffic office" of a railway.
In 1922 at Konigsburg, Germany built the first permanent airport and terminal especially for commercial aviation. This airport united airport functions in a single building, unlike Le Bourget, which had spread them among several buildings.
The next year, Tempelhof airport was built in Berlin. Tempelhof, as well as other airports of the era, had a continuous paved surface, or "apron," in front of the terminal and lights, permitting night flying. Templehof's terminal was curved, which although adopted because of a nearby cemetery fence rather than any functional reason, became a model for other airports.