These are the world’s most beautiful new airports These are the world’s most beautiful new airports

The world’s most beautiful new airports have just been named by Prix Versailles.

The list, which highlights spaces that ‘promote intelligent sustainability, in which culture serves and transcends the notion of the environment’, included six airport terminals, two of which are in the United States.

Portland International Airport’s Main Terminal, which debuted in August last year, and San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 1, which opened its final phase in June 2024, both made the list.

The former, designed by ZGF, celebrates Oregon’s history of forest product innovation, with an undulating mass timber roof extending over 36,000 sq m, while the latter is ‘a celebration of arts and crafts that reflects the unique character of the Bay Area’, as it is home to SFO Museum, the world’s only accredited museum at an airport.

Roland Garros Airport’s Arrivals Terminal, on Réunion Island, was celebrated as being ‘the world’s first tropical bioclimatic airport structure at this scale’. The airport features a central canyon that acts as a thermal chimney enabling natural ventilation, while shutters on the façades are connected to sensor that mean that can adjust their angles based on weather conditions.

The selection was rounded out with Yantai Penglai International Airport’s Terminal 2 in Yantai, China, Marseille Provence Airport’s Terminal 1 in Marignane, France, and Kansai International Airport’s Terminal 1 in Osaka, Japan, which reopened in time for World Expo 2025.

Secretary general of the Prix Versailles, Jérôme Gouadain, said, “The mark left by airports stems chiefly from their ever-growing role in international exchanges. As a result, this infrastructure must resolve formidable difficulties in terms of flow management and the aircraft themselves. But this new brand of facilities can also be seen as works of art, or at least as things of beauty. In fact, we should strive to make this happen, given their inescapability in our built environments and our landscapes.

“Orientated towards operational, ecological and aesthetic excellence, these hubs also convey shared values, culture or even a tribute to the past, out of respect for the legacies left behind by earlier generations. In the light of the planetary challenges facing us today, it is time for these expressive images of our contemporary heritage to be asserted as symbols of humankind’s internal dialogue.”

More information: prix-versailles.com

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