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 A I R P O

 R  T   T E

 R M I N A L

, 

 M A D R

 I D,  S P A

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 R D  R O

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1 T  h e  u n d u l a t i n  g  b a m

h u m a n i s e  l a r  g e  s  p a c e

o f   w a l k i n  g  l o n  g  d i s t a n c

t h e  t u n n e l  i s  a  v i e w  t o  t

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 ’ s  n e w  a i r p o

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 MA C HINE

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Trudging at midnight along Gatwick’s deserted corridors to board a

six hour late flight to Madrid, it struck me that Gatwick epitomises all

that is worst about the modern airport experience. The queuing, the

disorientation, the anomie, the slog of physical distances, the lack of

daylight and the endless shopping malls as a substitute for any kind of

interior life. Doubtless Gatwick’s designers and mood managers thought

that a gaudily coloured carpet would alleviate the route march to the

departure gate, but the effect was like putting lipstick on a baboon.

In common with its bigger and more unmanageable sister Heathrow,

Gatwick favours the Belly of the Beast model of passenger processing.

Inside the Beast’s Belly you could literally be anywhere. Dallas, Dacca,

Dresden, Darwin; guess where you are from the carpet in the corridors.

Truly, the airport is everywhere yet nowhere.

These are familiar protestations but worth restating. Fuelled by the

phenomenal growth of air travel the airport has become a necessary

contemporary evil, but any building type defined by such unforgiving

parameters (passenger flows, aircraft regulations, security paranoia,

rampant commercialism and uninhibited bigness) would struggle to be a

thing of inspiration. Yet within its short lifespan (it is only 70 years sinceGatwick was a shed in a field) the airport has also suffered from a kind of

hideously accelerated development. There are no archetypes to inspire or

refer to, only a parade of rapidly obsolescing mutations. While most cities

can muster a memorable church, city hall or museum, the memorable

airport is far more elusive. A quick roll call of notables might include

Piano’s Kansai, Foster’s Chek Lap Kok, SOM’s Haj Terminal in Mecca,

Saarinen at JFK, and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. And, of course, Stansted

(AR May 1991), Foster’s romantic vision of a sleek techno-shed in a field,

still maintaining its dignity no matter how many branches of Accessorize

it is obliged to accommodate.

To this woefully short list can now be added Richard Rogers’ new

terminal at Barajas airport in Madrid. In terms of physical size and

political ambition, the new terminal is a very heavy hitter designed to

increase Barajas’ current annual capacity of 25 million passengers to

70 million. This will make it Europe’s second busiest airport and also,

crucially, one capable of accommodating the new A380 Airbus, the

next generation of 800 seat super jumbos. Madrid is a natural locus of

exchange between Europe and Latin America and this latest tranche

of airport development, which includes two new runways, aims to

strengthen the historic umbilicus between Old and New Worlds. After

years of playing second fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid is feeling expansive

again, with a revitalised Barajas seen as a key aspect of civic and economic

image making.

Such a highly charged agenda has helped to give an almost unbelievable

impetus to an exceedingly large and complex project. Construction

drawings, for instance, were completed in a mere five months.

Comparisons with Heathrow’s Terminal 5, Rogers’ other major airport

project, are sadly instructive. Even at twice the size of T5 and begun

eight years after it, Barajas is now complete, and its development (unlikeT5’s which was mired in a planning and bureaucratic morass), seems

like a model of clarity and vision. From the first enlightened move of

hiring a British architect (this is Rogers’ first Iberian job but his project

team worked closely with local firm Estudio Lamela), Barajas has been

underpinned by political will, a responsive client in AENA, the Spanish

airports authority, plus the room and the resources1 to build.

Circumstances were in place for Rogers to deliver and he and project

director Ivan Harbour have done so resoundingly. Barajas civilises the

numbing experience of air travel, humanising the flows and processes of

airport life and using them to configure a building of power and presence.

2The rippling roofunifies the volumesof concourse andboarding pier.Cardrop off is on thefar right.

AIRPORT  TERMINAL,

MADRID, SPAIN

ARCHITECT

RICHARD ROGERS 

PARTNERSHIP

A car park buildingB terminal buildingC satellite buildingD service tunnelE existing runwaysF new runwaysG existing terminals

2

C

B

F

F

D

A

E

EG

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cross section through main terminal building showing departures in red,arrivals in blue

cross section through satellite building

Though the design was first begun in 1997 as a competition proposal,it still seems fresh and retains a spirit of dynamism and assurance. The

most obvious formal move is the undulating roof, suggesting a kinship

with T5, but Barajas also adopts the organisational model of Kansai (AR

November 1994). As at Osaka, a wavy roofed concourse buildin g is

incised by multistorey canyons and linked to a single, immensely long pier

that contains the boarding gates. This arrangement has the advantages

of directional clarity (you are always moving in a linear progression

either to or from your gate) and allows natural light and even views to

trespass delightfully into what is usually a hermetic interior. And whether

conscious or not, there is also a sense of Rogers picking up where

Piano left off, taking Kansai’s generative concept of a ‘soft machine’ that

persuasively fuses the biological with the mechanical, on to the next level.

Arriving by car2 gives the best first view of the architectural

achieveme nt. As you swing round to the north-west of the existing

Barajas complex, the new terminal appears as a vigorous wiggle in

the bleached altiplano landscape, like a back-of-the-envelope sketch

made flesh. The shrug of the roof seems to mimic the heave and roll of

distant hills and there is a brief rainbow flash of colour. Cars dropping

off passengers glide under the roof’s gull wing embrace, sweeping past

a vast parking structure for 9000 vehicles. The roof of the car park is

landscaped and its walls shrouded in gauzy metal mesh, softening the

impact of bulk. Six access silos boldly coded by superscale graphics add a

slightly surreal touch.

3The landscaped roof of theparking structure minimisesits bulk.4 Welcome to Madri d.Vehicledrop off and pick up under theultimate porte cochère.5

Check-in hall.The roof planeis liberated from the clutterof service;sculptural free-standing funnels,for instance,are used for air handling.

AIRPORT  TERMINAL,

MADRID, SPAIN

ARCHITECT

RICHARD ROGERS 

PARTNERSHIP

4

Progress from check-in to departure gate is marked and measured by

the rise and fall of the roof and rhythm of its structure. The basic unit of

support is a Y-shaped assemblage of tapering steel members anchored

by concrete moorings. Painted signature Roger egg-yolk yellow, the

steel members form the angular branches of the arboreal structure

with the more massive concrete trunks extending down through the

building. Organised around a 18 x 9m modular grid, Barajas is actually

 just a huge3 and potentially extendible kit of parts, with consequent

economies of scale in materials, detailing and construction time. Certain

elements that were specially designed for the project, such as the vaguely

anthropomorphic floor mounted air-handling units and wok-like light

fittings, have since gone into general commercial production.

Tempering this High-Tech rationale is a fair dollop of spatial and

experiential romance. The hypnotic swell of the roof creates different

sorts of spaces – grandly lofty halls for check-in at its peaks, and more

intimate areas for waiting, eating and circulation at its troughs. Theobvious conceptual model is the market roof amiably sheltering teeming

humanity and a diversity of activities. Some critics have also suggested

that it also alludes to the rhythmic vaults of the famous Cordoba

mosque. Clad in thin laminated strips of Chinese bamboo (astonishingly,

each strip was individually fixed by hand), the roof has a seductive, tactile

quality, like being inside a giant musical instrument. Even more lyrically,

project architect Simon Smithson likens the heaving geometry to being

underwater and seeing the surface of the sea softly rising and falling

above you, with shafts of sunlight percolating down into the depths.

Chracterised by tactful and imaginative handling of light and views,

Barajas has managed to break free from the dead hand of airport anomie.

Glazed walls offer a redemptive connection with the exterior, and the

harsh Madrid light is filtered and channelled around the interior through

a series of oculi in the rippling roof. Light catches the creamy floor of

Spanish limestone, turning it to a gleaming horizontal plane that brightens

the cavernous spaces. Most dramatically of all, light sears down into the

canyons, three parallel voids carved into the length of the building. As

an obvious means of funnelling daylight to the arrivals hall below, these

multistorey clefts also signpost the various stages of departure, from

check-in to aircraft boarding. At intervals, the canyons are spanned by

bridges, so departing and arriving passengers are periodically aware

of each other, helping to mitigate feelings of disorient ation. While

the intermediate canyon provides contemplative views down into the

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level -2

ground level

level 1

level -2

ground level

level 1

level 2

level 2

AIRPORT  TERMINAL,

MADRID, SPAIN

ARCHITECT

RICHARD ROGERS 

PARTNERSHIP

6

1 public space airside2 public space landside3 horizontal and vertical circulation4 retail5 airport services6 baggage transport system

6The great nave of the boardingpier,with its kaleidoscopiccolumns. Arriving passengers crossby bridges to the upper level.main terminal satellite building

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7Baggage reclaim hall withdistinctive ‘wok’ light fittings.8Canyon in baggage reclaim hall.Departing passengers cross overbridges at upper level.Light isfiltered down into the depthsthrough fixed louvres in the oculi.

cut-away isometric of roof and canyon

AIRPORT TERMINAL,

MADRID, SPAIN

ARCHITECT

RICHARD ROGERS 

PARTNERSHIP

7

8

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9 Waiting and shopping – boardinggates with retail units.Rogershas attempted to minimise theimpact of commerce.10Airside canyon for arrivals,animated by the panoply ofvertical circulation.11Connection with the exteriormakes passengers feel as thoughthey are somewhere.

baggage reclaim hall, the canyons at land and airside are filled with

the panoply of vertical circulation. Long banks of escalators and stairs

bestride the chasms, and curious glass lifts that might have sprung from

the imagination of Heath Robinson scuttle busily up and down. The

airside canyon is also filled with the inevitable monstrous regiment of

shops, but by setting clear protocols for fit-outs, Rogers has tried to

contain the dismaying effects of commercial intrusion.

The 38 boarding gates are contained in a soaring treble-height pier,

with a further 26 docked on to the satellite building (a sort of ‘mini-

me’ version of the terminal), which is linked to the main complex by

underground shuttle. At three quarters of a mile long, the pier seems

infinite, an elegantly elongated nave articulated by the repetitive march

of its arboreal structure. Along its length, the signature Rogers yellow

is amplified by the full range of the colour spectrum. This apparently

whimsical touch is partly an aesthetic decision, but it also assists with

orientation, the colour coding of the structure matching the signage for

boarding gates. A s departing passen gers head for the red, orange, blue

or green columns, this is the end of the line; beyond are the planes, the

runway and the sky. Arriving travellers make the journey in reverse ,

docking into and across the boarding pier nave, communing with the

baggage reclaim floor at lower level and finally emerging into the

brilliance and bustle of the landside canyon. The new terminal is devoted

to Iberia, British Airways and their smaller commercial partners, with

budget airlines kept at some remove in the existing terminals.

The romance of Barajas belies the technical feat of its realisation. It

might all look effortless, but below stairs and behind the scenes is a

seething netherworld of operational spaces such as the vast subterranean

baggage-handling facility. Nothing stands still in this building for long,

and the continuous, relentless choreography of people, planes and stuff

shapes and animates the architecture. That there can also be scope in

this huge, impersonal machine to create humanely scaled, dignified and

even sensuous experiences is the building’s remarkable trump card. With

Barajas, the airport as a type finally seems to have reached an importantbenchmark in its short and unsatisfactory evolution, the grubby

caterpillar finally transformed into a butterfly. Is it too much to hope that

the civilising mission of Rogers’ Spanish soft machine can help set the

agenda for the next generation of airports? CATHERINE SLESSOR

1 The budget for the main terminal,satellite and car park was €1238 million.The total Barajas

development budget was €6000 million.2 The proposed train link from the new terminal to central Madrid is still under construction; it should be

completed next year.3 Total built area,including parking and access roads,i s approx 1 100 000sqm.The main terminal is

470 000sqm and the satellite 290 000sqm.

AIRPORT  TERMINAL,MADRID, SPAIN

ARCHITECT

RICHARD ROGERS 

PARTNERSHIP

Architect

Richard Rogers Partnership, London

Associate architect

Estudio Lamela

Structural & services engineers

INITEC Tarmac Professional

Services

Structural design

Anthony Hunt Associates

Facade design

ARUP Facades

Lighting consultant

 Jonathan Speirs

Photographs

Duccio Malagamba

9

10

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