At first they worked it out in steel, but the complications of the roof and the humidity levels required to house aluminium aircraft meant cement had to be used, pre-cast in panels.For a pre-fab, it is fabulously calculated: 300 pre-cast concrete ribs that form the walls and roof, and 700 outer panels, each weighing 11 tons, were towed to the site. It had to cover the B52 and allow enough space for the rest of the collection, as well as possess the structural capability for planes to be hung from the roof. I wanted this museum to have that kind of feeling,” Norman Foster explains.Eleven years ago, when he first sketched out the concept (which never changed, despite funding problems dragging it out until the Saudi Arabians post-Gulf war, and American veterans, chipped in) Foster Associates went into consultation with Ove Arup and the contractors to realise the building. It is not ash-grey, like so many cement surfaces, but burnished and silky smooth, with a reflective quality.”There is a certain kind of spirit, around aircraft in hangars and service bays for helicopters, that is to do with cleanliness and immaculate supervision. Bathed in light from what is really only a narrow strip of window encircling the building, the silvery-grey cement ramp is angled to bounce back daylight.
It soars into a gigantic arch over the B52 to end at the nail-tip, 90 metres away, in a manicured glass facade overlooking the operational runway where Norman parked his helicopter.It’s odds on that visitors will want to approach the museum this way, lured by all those flying machines glimpsed through the glass, but to do so would be to miss the suspenseful approach to this awesomely scaled, beautifully lit building past Renato Niemis’s glass sculpture, Counting the Cost, and straight on to the nose of the B52 bomber looming above.Inside, an encircling ramp allows you to walk – or take a wheelchair, since there are no level changes – under or around these monstrous machines. In real life it is shaped like a thumbnail, with the base of the nail low in the ground, and with a tunnel-like entrance for visitors. Simple, because it is a hangar, with an emphasis on clarity, natural light, and an economical system of atmospheric control. Complicated, because its geometry is based on an arched geometric shape called the torus, and it is elliptical in plan.This torus, explains David Nelson, of Foster Associates, is like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it, dunked into a grassy knoll. Tanned, with grizzled hair, no glasses and an athletic figure, he’s always testing himself. For years, for relaxation, he performed aerobatics at intermediate level, spinning, looping and somersaulting – though he admits to not doing that so much any more.
He can name every one of the bomber and fighter planes at Duxford. One of the exhibits is a blue Schweitzer glider with which Foster himself caught a few thermals in the States 20 years ago.The American Air Museum is both the simplest and the most complicated of Foster’s buildings to date. This is the architect who pilots himself to his spectacular buildings – in Frankfurt, Berlin, Bordeaux, Hong Kong, Scotland, Wales, Bilbao, Valencia His schedule makes dizzy reading At 61, he’s fitter than men 20 years his junior. But the collection of vintage American aircraft from the First World War to the Gulf war attracts 400,000 people every year, which is why the Heritage Lottery Fund came up with pounds 6.8m in 1995 for the Imperial War Museum to build the new museum that they commissioned from Foster 11 years ago.Foster was a happy choice. Wacky little flying machines such as Tiger Moths still roar up the runway, coaxed into the air by enthusiasts who’ve outgrown their Airfix phase. United States and British flags flutter alongside the windsocks. Redbrick suburban buildings house the officers’ mess, and a workmanlike hangar built by the PSA (Property Services Agency, now defunct) reminds you just why calling Norman’s building an aircraft hangar is like calling Quaglino’s a canteen.
