The Architect Of Of Suvarnabhumi Airport

[kamui]

The airport was built by the architecture company Murphy/Jahn. The head of the company and main architect is the German born Helmut Jahn (the founder C.F. Murphy died 1985).

The company has decades of experience in building huge structures all over the world like the Sony Center on the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin and the One Liberty Place, the tallest building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

For his buildings Helmut Jahn will probably never win the Pritzker Price (the highest architecture award), since his buildings mights be impressive and functional, but the design is usually following the boring and faceless "International Style". His skyscrapers are usually no landmark buildings in a positive sense since they lack any 'personality'.

The company was involved in building several airports*:

1987 United Airlines Terminal 1 at O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois

1999 Munich Airport Center, Germany

2000 Airport Köln/Bonn, Köln, Germany (a smaller, very functional airport, but it won't leave any impressions on the traveller)

1995-2004 New Bangkok International Airport**

*List from Wikipedia, but Wikipedia does not list Suvarnabhumi Airport

** construction time frame from Murphy/Jahn website.

Statement on the S´airport from Murphy/Jahn website:

The New Bangkok International Airport will be constructed on a vacant site outside of Bangkok. It will be constructed incrementally. The first phase will have approximately 50 gates and 500,000 SM of terminal facilities.

Based upon the masterplan and preliminary schematic design documents that have been already prepared, this concept emphasizes passenger circulation over aircraft circulation. Although the curbfront area is not capable of providing for the ultimate capacity of the site, leading to two separate entrances, it is the most compact terminal of those that we studied.

A large roof trellis structure placed over the complex of functionally separate buildings unifies the site and provides an overriding consistent architectural image. Sized to accommodate future growth, the trellis provides an important functional advantage as well as an architectural one. With louvers positioned to shade the structures below from direct sunlight, mechanical loads are reduced.

Edited October 2, 2006 by kamui