Spending the night in an airport 1 always makes me think of Marc Augé’s famous intuition:
The non-places […] are not meeting spaces and do not build common references to a group. Finally, a non-place is a place we do not live in, in which the individual remains anonymous and lonely. 2
I can’t think of any other place that fits this description better.
While also other spaces are usually indicated as typical non-places (think about malls, hotel rooms, etc.), airports simply beat the shit out of them.
You can often make a hotel room your own, at least a little bit, by covering every furniture in the room with your stuff, for example. Or meet friends, or people with similar interests, at a shopping mall. Even on big ferry boats it’s easier to make connections or find your own, cozy, little space.
In airports, on the other hand …
