Beijing Daxing International Airport + Zaha Hadid Architects

Radial Romance

Zaha Hadid never did get to see the finished project. She died in 2016, three years before completion. It’s yet another star in her architectural firmament or rather starfish in her architectural ocean. The world’s largest terminal in a single building. All 700,000 square metres. Current Studio Principal of Zaha Hadid Architects Patrik Schumacher was the co designer. The six storey airport – four above ground; two below – is arranged around a “central orientation space dome” to quote Zaha. Five aircraft piers radiate out from this vast atrium. The tip of the sixth arm is filled by the railway station plaza. Max eight minute walks to departure gates. Patrik this time, “Echoing principles in traditional Chinese architecture that organise interconnected spaces around a central courtyard, the terminal’s design guides all passengers seamlessly through the relevant departure, arrival or transfer zones towards the grand courtyard at its centre – a multilayered meeting space at the heart of the terminal.”

Disciplined, rigorous and highly intellectual, the design achieves a large measure of lyrical beauty from its deeply sensuous sinuous architecture meets sculpture form. Daxing is one hour’s drive south of Tiananmen Square, just round the corner in Beijing distance terms. It strategically and symbolically terminates the Central Axis of Beijing. This line leads from the Throne Room of the Forbidden City down the middle of the roughly symmetrical street plan of the city. Illustrated brass plates across the airport floor mark the city as compass: 48 kilometres from Bell Tower; 47.8 kilometres from Drum Tower; 46 kilometres from Pavilion of Myriad Springtimes Jingshan; 44.2 kilometres from Tian’anmen Rostrum; 43.3 kilometres from Qianmen; 41.4 kilometres from The Temple of Heaven; and 40.2 kilometres from Yongdingmen.

Under one of the vast mushrooming ceilings, shopping pods include Bally, Boss, Coach, Michael Kors, Montblanc, Polo Ralph Lauren and Jingdong Convenience Store. On the second floor, East Pacific Passenger Lounge provides a dining area, bar, gym, meeting rooms and bedrooms spread over a large oval floorplate. The great outdoors and indoors collide in themed indoor amenity areas: Chinese Garden, Countryside Garden, Porcelain Garden, Silk Garden and Tea Garden. These oases are sandwiched between the double ended prongs at the five aircraft piers of the symmetrical starfish layout.

There are juxtapositions and there’s the cutting edge Zaha Hadid Architects design (glass and metal) backdrop to the traditional Chinese Garden (timber and stone). Visitors could be forgiven for thinking they have arrived in the Forbidden City without ever having left the airport. A pair of exquisitely painted pavilions filled with polished antiques stand proud on either side of a pond. Rockeries and a gazebo complete the Willow Pattern scene. It’s hard to appreciate the full scope and scale of the airport either upon arrival or from the indoor outdoor experience. The sweep of undulating red roofscape – a contemporary bow to historic Eastern architecture – is best appreciated from the window of a China Southern Airlines plane.

Meanwhile back in London, Serpentine Galleries are collaborating with the Zaha Hadid Foundation this year to commemorate her legacy and mark the 25th annual Serpentine Pavilion – she designed the inaugural temporary structure in 2000. A series of lectures and events will fill architecture and design connoisseurs’ diaries this autumn. Artistic Director of the Serpentine Hans Ulrich Obrist says, “We often quote Zaha Hadid’s belief that there ‘should be no end to experimentation’. Zaha’s spirits remains a vital inspiration for our programme.” Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation Aric Chen comments, “Through her boundary breaking life and work, Zaha changed the course of architecture. Her early and longstanding collaboration with the Serpentine played no small piece in this. We’re thrilled and honoured to start this collaboration with an institution she was so close to and one that so deeply shares her commitment to innovation and the public.”