Meet Jordan’s latest airport. ‘The Queen Alia International Airport’ for Amman. Now officially open, this is the very latest architecture project to open in the area. Designed by countless award winning Foster + Partners, the new terminal heralds a new beginning for the airport, turning it into a competitive hub, fighting for passenger traffic between monster hubs either side of Dubai and Istanbul, this could be what the airport needs to increase passenger traffic on a dramatic scale, infact, the airport has been designed to take a 6% increase in passengers each year until 2030. Raising it from 3.5 million this year to 12 million.
What is most impressive for this airport is the sympathetic architecture to it’s environment. Whilst the roof is concrete, the form and structure is reflective of the light fabric of Bedouin tents. “Designed to serve as the main gateway to Amman – one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world – its design resonates with a sense of place and local culture.” Foster + Partners has stated.
“The tessellated roof canopy comprises a series of shallow concrete domes, which extend to shade the facades. To enable seamless future expansion, each dome is a modular unit. The domes branch out from the supporting columns like the leaves of a desert palm and daylight floods the concourse through split beams at the column junctions. Echoing the veins of a leaf, a geometric pattern based on traditional Islamic forms is applied to each exposed soffit.”
It’s a clever, modular and elegant construction that won’t age and fits into the remit of a 21st century airport. Gone are the narrow corridors and confusing layouts. A simplistic, flowing and spacious terminal that allows for the natural flow of people, rather than funnelling and forcing them to a destination, placing the airport in a catagory with beautiful airports such as Hong Kong International, Kuala Lumpur, or Madrid Barajas.
Full gallery below.
