“Future airports will float on water”: the Foulness airport project (1968-1974) from an Italian perspective

The design of London’s third airport, developed during the 1960s and 1970s, represents an intriguing expression of the technical experiments occurring internationally at that time. This contribution aims to propose a fresh perspective, focusing on the technical innovations for this significant project and primarily on the solution by the Shell company, which gained more approbation in the Italian context. The Shell company’s project for the Foulness airport, submitted in 1970, was widely circulated in Italian magazines and featured in ‘La Stampa’ on April 21, 1970. The solution consists in building floating platforms anchored to the seabed, made of hollow concrete floating elements, prefabricated on land and prestressed together by wire ropes during assembly. Engineer Lorenzo Tortolina contributed to disseminating this innovative technical solution in Italy in the 1970s by using the principles behind Shell's project to develop his proposal for another major unrealized engineering work: the Messina Strait crossing. Not all the technical innovations promoted between the 1960s and 1970s were realized: the Foulness Airport and the Messina Strait crossing are two examples. The construction techniques proposed for large infrastructures were often daring, and administrative and economic difficulties added to the technical difficulties. The events surrounding the Foulness airport and the Messina bridge - although in geographically distant contexts, developed in parallel, with similar outcomes, which include evidence of the research and technical experimentation in progress at the end of the 1960s.