Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Virginia, United States (DCA/KDCA)
President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 chose Gravelly Point on the Potomac River as the site of a new airport for the nation's capital. Washington National Airport opened in June 1941. In 1997 a new tower was built in a post-modernist style. Designed by César Pelli and Associates, it stands 61 meters (201 feet) tall. It originally had a white dome on top that housed ground-radar equipment. However, buildings in nearby Crystal City, Virginia, caused a radar echo, or "ghost," so the dome was moved to a ground location on the airfield. Congress renamed DCA Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in 1998.
The photograph is a part of Art of the Airport Tower, an exhibition that explores contemporary and historical air traffic control towers in the U.S. and around the world.
Image by Carolyn Russo, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
