10 Airports – You Wish Your Fights Get Delayed

Airports are an essential part of our travels and also our lives. They are a point of departure and arrival, transitional spaces, points of meeting or separation… In our modern day where flying is done for pleasure just as much as it’s done for business, airports and airplanes can be found in just about every corner of the world as the demand to reach far off destinations only increases. Airports, Airlines and other modes of commuting is growing so fast that its a piece of cake to travel from any part to another part of the globe. With the growth in architecture and construction these airports are meeting every single need and advancements in their designs and functions. 

 

 

1. Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan
Opened: 1994
Designed by: Renzo Piano
Kansai International Airport, opened in September 1994, is an international airport located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay. The airport serves as an international hub for ANA, Japan Airlines and for Peach, the first international low-cost carrier in Japan. The length of Terminal 1 is almost 2km and is one of the longest buildings in the world. The airport is also built to withstand earthquakes and typhoons, which are features that are more important than ever (especially for an airport on the water).

 

 

2. Wellington International Airport,Wellington, New Zealand
Opened: 1959
Designed by: Studio Pacific Architecture and Warren and Mahoney
As if you needed any more reasons to visit New Zealand, its airport has one of the wildest looking on Earth. The Rock, as it’s known, is a unique lounge encased in a mesmerizing three-dimensional mosaic of wooden panels. Wellington International Airport comprises just 270-acres of land, and has a reputation for rough and turbulent landings because of strong winds created by the Cook Strait. The surrounding area however is typical of New Zealand with rolling hills and lush greens, which compliment the unique dome-like structure of the inside which certainly lives up to its ‘Rock’ nickname.

 

 

3. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Saba
Opened: 1963
Designed by:unknown
The 1,299-foot-long runway at Saba’s airport stretches across high cliffs that plummet into the Caribbean Sea, making it the world’s shortest and steepest airstrip, suitable only for small aircraft. What the runway lacks in size, it makes up for in location, with a breathtaking view of the island’s active volcano, Mount Scenery—which, thankfully, you can appreciate from a distance.

 

 

4. Marrakesh Menara Airport , Marrakesh, Morocco
Opened: 2008
Designed by: E2A Architecture
The real stunner here is its new terminal (above), which features an overhang and facade that cast arabesque shadows at all times. The only airport in Marrakech and although it is very small and simple it is one of the most beautiful in the world due to its façade created during a recent expansion. It was was created to resemble classic Islamic geometric design and features nature motifs inscribed into a massive network of giant concrete diamond shapes. At its core, the airport is essentially one giant piece of artwork. The structure almost resembles a soccer or football stadium from the outside, presenting itself like a massive steel grating with planes flying in and out. However, the appeal is surprisingly welcoming and pleasing to the eye.

 

 

5. Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport , Madrid, Spain
Opened: 2006 (Terminal 4)
Designed by: Antonio Lamela and Richard Rogers
Terminal 4 comes with a strike against it: it’s so long (especially when you include the integrated, but next-door Terminal 4S) that it can feel like it takes forever to get from gate to gate. But this is an unusually intelligently designed terminal: clear, color-coded signs group together directions for gates, and multi-level walkways reduce traffic on each individual level. Even when the terminal is full (and I’ve changed planes at peak times here), it never feels oppressively crowded, and you never get frustratingly lost or stuck waiting for buses the way you can in the design-before-function Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.

6. Malvinas Argentinas Airport , Ushuaia, Argentina
Opened: 1995
Designed by:unknown
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.

 

 

7. Kuala Lumpur International Airport , Sepang, Malaysia
Opened: 1998
Designed by: Kisho Kurokawa
There’s something indescribably spiritual about cruising through the chaos beneath a light-speckled wooden-slat ceiling, held up by a series of tapered beams.  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.

 

 

8. Dubai International Airport , Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Opened: 1960
Designed by: Paul Andreu
Designed by the same French guy who dreamed up a whole slew of other airports in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Brunei, Manila, Shanghai, and Jakarta, plus Paris’s Charles de Gaulle andOrly. The man knows exactly what he was put on this Earth to do.

 

 

9. Denver International Airport, Denver, USA
Opened: 1994
Designed by: Perez Architects, Fentress Bradburn Architects, Pouw & Associates, and Bertram A. Bruton & Associates
A bit like the Hajj terminal in Saudi Arabia, DIA’s tent-like roof is fashioned from white Teflon-coated fiberglass, mimicking the white-capped Rockies in the distance. Though honestly, it looks just as much like the biggest circus ever staged, and that’s cool too. (It must be said that this thing stands about a mile to the south, greeting visitors.

 

 

10. Jeddah Hajj Terminal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Opened: 1981
Designed by: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
One of the world’s most radical airport terminals is one most Americans are unlikely to ever travel through. The Jeddah Hajj Terminal is unique: it’s only active during the “hajj,” a religiously mandated pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslims. During that six-week period, it’s one of the busiest airport terminals in the world.
it’s made of 210 open-air, white fiberglass tents which create a “chimney effect” that can cool the hot desert air by 50 degrees without expensive, hard-to-maintain air conditioning, according to a profile in the Architectural Record. The tents can contain 80,000 people, with flexible spaces devoted to very unusual activities for an airport terminal, such as changing clothes and ritual foot-washing.