Old Salt Lake City airport’s iconic World Map finds a new home at the new airport

SALT LAKE CITY — An iconic piece of the old Salt Lake City International Airport has a new home inside the new facility for passengers to see later this year.

A team of masons completed the reinstallation of the airport’s 64-year-old World Map this summer, adding it to the entrance of Concourse B from the new Central Tunnel, which is set to open on Oct. 22 along with five new gates.

“This is kind of a continuity of history,” said Chandler McClellan, construction deputy program director for the airport’s redevelopment program, as he stood on the World Map Monday. “We want people to feel and see what was here originally.”

Becoming a ‘focal point’

The map dates to about 1960, three years before the facility officially became Salt Lake City International Airport. The architectural firm Ashton, Evans and Brazier designed the massive 38-foot-by-38-foot map; stoneworker Julius Bartoli constructed it out of terrazzo so it could be placed inside what was then a new airport terminal. It ultimately serves as a bit of a time capsule from this era because it features one of the airline’s existing routes as of 1960.

It would also go on to become a beloved feature of the airport for 60 years.

Placed near the entrance of the old terminal, many families — especially families of Latter-day Saint missionaries — would stand by where a loved one was headed to or coming from. Parents would show children places they flew to and children would run up to a country and pretend they were eating in that country, airport officials fondly remember.

It was the “focal point” of the airport, former airport police Chief Craig Vargo once recalled.

“Anyone who was coming to the airport could say, ‘Meet me at the World Map,’ and anyone who had been to the airport would know exactly where to go,” he said, in a history of the facility compiled by airport officials.

Yet, its fate was left in question as work began on a new airport facility in 2014 — and getting it done turned into a major technological feat.

An ‘arduous task’ to save the map

Project officials weren’t confident they could save the map, airport spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said.

Jake Bingham, project manager for Finn Wall Specialities, explained the company couldn’t find any record of a terrazzo preservation extraction project quite like what was required. Its total weight and the fragile nature of the artwork required it to be taken out in pieces.

“Just the taking it and moving it out in pieces and then putting it back in — that had never been done,” he said, adding that he figured his company would have to build a replica of it if airport officials wanted it so badly.

However, how construction crews installed Bartoli’s map proved to be the factor that saved the map from being destroyed.

IMS Masonry was called in to extract pieces of the terrazzo flooring outside of the map. Masons found that a bond-separating slip sheet was used between the terrazzo and the floor, which made it possible to extract the map without destroying it, said John Kunz, project manager for IMS Masonry.

So in late 2020, months after the old airport closed, crews came in and began work to salvage the map.

“Once we got the first piece, it was a breath of fresh air,” he said. “Once we did that, I knew that we had it, and we could extract it.”

The team broke it off into 75 pieces — each about 4 feet by 4 feet in size and 400 pounds in weight — in a way that it could be seamed back together and repolished once the construction crews were ready to build an extension to Concourse B.

Those pieces remained in storage until earlier this year when the map was reinstalled by a set of escalators at the northern end of the Central Tunnel. Because of its size and location, it required additional work to the frame of the building so the building could support the map’s weight, McClellan said.

“It was an arduous task,” Bingham added. “It’s something that I wondered, at times, if it could be done. But here it is and we’re on it. It’s complete.”

An old, but new ‘center attraction’

McClellan believes all that work will be worth it.

The World Map is one of a few new art installations passengers will notice in the Concourse B expansion. It is surrounded by a second canyon wall art piece similar to the art installation in Concourse A leading to the Central Tunnel.

The Central Tunnel itself is an art feature replicating rivers that flow through Utah’s canyon walls. There are a few other outdoors-themed art elements planned out for this section of the growing airport.

Once open, McClellan expects that many — especially those who remember the old airport — will fall in love with the World Map once again.

“The lion’s share of people coming out (to Concourse B) will take (the Central Tunnel) and see this right here,” he said, pointing down at the map. “It really is the center attraction of this facility, in my opinion.”