Flight delays are
less painful inside a gorgeous, well-designed airport.
From January 2010 By Karrie
Jacobs
Envision a majestic space, two miles long, shaped like a
dragon. Above, a flurry of reds and yellows color a dizzying mesh ceiling,
backlit by the sun, and below, 50 million people pass each year. This building,
one of the world's largest, is no palace or museum - it's Terminal 3 at Beijing International Airport.
Airports, of course, aren't always so glorious. Most often,
they're merely utilitarian entry and exit points for travelers who may be too
harried to notice the design. But a growing number of cities have spent
lavishly, hiring starchitects to elevate the basic terminal-and-tower structure
into a city's captivating gateway. This is especially true in Asia.
Eager to demonstrate their affluence and technological mastery, countries like China and South Korea have led the world in
the construction of gargantuan new facilities that are unparalleled in their
architectural style and engineering. "Airports are a national symbol,
therefore no expense is spared to make sure mine is better than yours," says
architect Ron Steinert, an airport expert with the international architecture
firm Gensler.
Unfortunately, it
might be hard to envision an airport like Beijing's in the U.S., where flying
is generally no more inspiring than taking a bus (and sometimes less so). Sure,
back in the 1960s, when Eero Saarinen's landmark TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy
was completed, air travel was a glamorous, exciting experience for a relatively
small number of people. (In 1960, JFK handled 8.8 million passengers a year.
These days it's upward of 48 million.) But today, airports like
Cleveland-Hopkins International and La Guardia are so dreary and difficult to
navigate, their terminals only add to what is already a dreaded travel
experience. Still, some U.S.
airports have moments of beauty, such as the light tunnel at Chicago O'Hare's
United Airlines terminal, a breakthrough when it was completed in 1988, or
artist Michele Oka Doner's sea life–embedded floor at Miami's Concourse A, which earned a cameo in
the George Clooney movie Up in the Air.
Meanwhile, the rest
of the world is building entire new terminals that infuse air travel with some
of its old magic. T4 at Madrid's
Barajas airport is, according to the New Yorker's architecture critic
Paul Goldberger, "more breathtakingly beautiful than any airport I have
ever seen." And Santiago Calatrava's Sondika airport in Bilbao is "cathedral-like, a great space
to be in," according to Design Within Reach's globetrotting founder Rob
Forbes. And the world's most beautiful airports aren't just for show - they
also bring heightened functionality. "There's a need for legibility to the
actual design and a linear flow," says engineer Regine Weston, an airport
expert for Arup who studies the pragmatic side of airport beauty. "So when
you're in a building you have a very good sense of what happens next and where
you go." In other words, these airports will not only dazzle you - their
design may also help you get to your gate on time.
Terminal 3, Beijing
International Airport
Opened in time for
the 2008 Olympics, the vast Terminal 3 (two miles long and one of the largest
buildings in the world) is supposed to represent a dragon. Architects Foster +
Partners color-coded the ceiling - a dizzyingly complex mesh that allows sunlight
to filter in - with red zones and yellow zones. Not only does the traditionally
Chinese color scheme heighten the building's drama, it also helps passengers
navigate the building.
Beauty Mark:
Arriving passengers disembark at the airport's highest level: "You're
walking through a massive, massive space which is the gateway to China,"
says Foster + Partners CEO Mouzhan Majidi.
Terminal 4, Barajas Airport, Madrid
Designed by Richard
Rogers Partnership, Terminal 4 opened in 2006. Its colorful pylons supporting
an undulating bamboo-lined roof create a series of daylight-filled canyons in
which both arriving and departing passengers pass through one spectacular
space, albeit on different levels. The terminal, designed to handle 35 million
passengers a year, is Madrid's bid to become Europe's dominant air-hub.
Beauty Mark: T4 is
easy to understand because it's linear. "Rogers puts you inside a rainbow that
stretches for half a mile," says architecture critic Paul Goldberger.
TWA Terminal, John F. Kennedy Airport, New York City
Granted, you
haven't been able to fly out of Eero Saarinen's 1962 landmark terminal in
nearly a decade. But its poured-concrete swoops and curves, a lyric poem to the
romance of flight, still set the standard for today's leading architects who
want to return to - as Saarinen said - architecture that would "express the
excitement of air travel."
Beauty Mark:
Eventually you'll be able to walk through the old TWA terminal and its
125-foot-long tubular passageways to check into your flight in the adjacent
JetBlue terminal.
Carrasco
International Airport,
Montevideo, Uruguay
The new terminal,
opened in 2009 and designed by Uruguayan-born architect Rafael Viñoly, is a
gorgeous throwback to JFK circa 1960. In spirit, it's like Saarinen's TWA
Terminal, but in style, it's more similar to the JFK's international arrivals
hall designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. A 1,000-foot-long, low arch,
it is as simple as a child's drawing of an airport, one unbroken, graceful
curve. Inside, the departures hall is a great, sunlit room, like an old train
station, and a top floor terrace commands sweeping views of the runways.
Beauty Mark: Viñoly
notes that in Uruguay
"friends and family still come to greet you at the airport or see you
off." The terraces and lounges are designed to be "dramatic and
welcoming" for both ticketed passengers and their guests.
Sondika
Airport, Bilbao, Spain
This Santiago
Calatrava–designed airport, built in 2000, is nicknamed La Paloma, or the Dove,
for its birdlike silhouette. Inside, the terminal is nakedly sculptural, an
unadorned study in sunlight and the rhythmic patterns created by its concrete
ribs. "It struck me like a contemporary Gaudí kind of place," says
Design Within Reach founder Rob Forbes, "fully in keeping with the
Spanish/Basque/Catalan tradition of ‘modern baroque.'"
Beauty Mark: Even
the parking garage, partially buried in a green hillside, is well thought out
and beautiful.
Denver International
Airport
Denver's airport, routinely voted the best airport
in North America by business travelers, is
beloved for its billowing roofline. The product of a hasty sketch by
Denver-based architect Curtis Fentress, who had three short weeks to cook up a
design concept, the airport features a Teflon-coated tensile fabric roof - the
world's largest when the airport opened in 1995 - and looks like a village of
giant white tepees. The airport is at its most beautiful when you approach by
air from the east and see the glowing man-made peaks silhouetted against the Rockies.
Beauty Mark: The
quirky music that marks the arrival of the airport's people mover was supplied
by Denver artist Jim Green, who is also
responsible for the Laughing Escalators at the Denver Convention Center.
Incheon International Airport, South Korea
Since its opening
in 2001, Incheon, designed by Denver's
Fentress Architects, has been a frequent presence at the number one spot on
lists of the world's best airports. Not only is it efficient and welcoming, it
is intended to be a showcase of Korean culture. The bow of the roofline
emulates a traditional Korean temple, the arrival hallways are lined with 5,000
years of Korean artifacts, and the airport's wildly biomorphic train terminal
is one of the few places on earth that still looks genuinely futuristic.
Beauty Mark: Visit
the Pine Tree
Garden in Millennium Hall and the Wildflower Garden
in the basement of the Transportation
Center.
Marrakech Menara Airport, Morocco
This dramatic new
airport terminal is an example of how Modernism and traditional Islamic
architecture have begun to cross-pollinate. Designed by a team of architects
led by Casablanca-based E2A Architecture and completed in 2008, the structure
is formed of massive concrete rhombuses. This muscular approach is softened by
the exquisite arabesque patterns on the building's glass skin, which cast
complex, ever-changing shadows on the terminal's floors.
Beauty Mark: There
are 72 photovoltaic pyramids generating power on the roof.
Chek Lap Kok Airport, Hong Kong
Compared with the
spectacular Beijing
airport, this 1998 Foster + Partners project is relatively humble. Its beauty
can be attributed to its extraordinary functionality. Even the sleepiest
passenger off the 17-hour flight from New
York can maneuver through this airport with eyes half
open. Billowy roof vaults work like subliminal arrows, constantly nudging
passengers in the right direction. Between the Jetway and the express train to Hong Kong, there are no stairs or escalators.
Beauty Mark: The
train to Hong Kong Central is right in the main terminal building and
impossible to miss. Departing Hong Kong,
passengers can simply drop their bags at the train station downtown, and not
only will they make it to the airport, they’ll also be checked onto the
departing flight.
Tempelhof International Airport, Berlin
As difficult as it
is to use the word beautiful to describe anything designed by Nazi
architect Albert Speer, this imposing 1936 terminal, an unbroken curve more than
a third of a mile in length, determined the shape of airports for generations
to come. Made famous by the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949, the airport was shut
down in 2008; the airfield will be used as an immense city park while the
terminal will be preserved for cultural functions.
Beauty Mark: In
about seven years, this 568-acre green space will eclipse the famous Tiergarten
as Berlin's
premier park.
Malvinas
Argentinas Airport,
Ushuaia, Argentina
Located in Tierra
del Fuego at the tip of South America, this is
the world's southernmost international airport. Its beauty is largely a
function of its natural setting - flights here come in low over the majestic
Andes Mountains - and its role as a gateway to Patagonia and the Antarctic. But,
while many remote airports are marred by ugly bunker-style terminals, the
charming timber-framed main building here doesn't detract from the natural
setting.
Beauty Mark: The
airport sits directly on the Beagle Channel, named for the H.M.S. Beagle,
the vessel that carried Charles Darwin to South America.
Kansai International Airport,
Osaka, Japan
While it's no
longer the world's largest, the airport that rests on a giant man-made island
two miles off the coast of Osaka
is still a thing of wonder. Designed by architect Renzo Piano and opened in
1994, it is a single, sunlight-filled tube, a supersize airplane fuselage that
stretches for more than a mile, with a roofline that moves through space like a
wave. International passengers, departing from the terminal's top floor, are
treated to a display of exposed structure - as in the architect's famous early
work, the Centre Pompidou - revealing the exquisite complexity of this
deceptively simple building.
Beauty Mark:
Adjacent to the airport is Sky View, "the very first aero theme park in Japan,"
where you can play with flight simulators or watch takeoffs and landings from
the observatory level.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia
One of a string of
megaprojects conceived by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad to make Malaysia more
competitive with its Asian neighbors, KLIA opened in 1998. Designed by Japanese
architect Kisho Kurokawa in partnership with a local firm, KLIA's style is so
weirdly eclectic that you couldn't mistake it for any other airport in the
world. In the international departures hall, a series of Islamic-style
domes - hyperbolic paraboloids - are held aloft by strange, chubby columns that
taper toward the top. Even the long transfer hallways, with wooden ceilings
pierced with tiny spotlights, possess unmistakable character.
Beauty Mark: The
airport is part of Malaysia's
Multimedia Super Corridor. Fast trains will take you directly to the country's
newest cities, monumental Putrajaya and technologically sophisticated Cyberjaya.
Source :
http://www.travelandleisure.com
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