Pearson T1 - Pier F

[EnviroTO]

Thanks for the picture updates. Always nice to see what is going on with construction and demolition at the airport.

I wonder what style the airport terminal should have considering Toronto is probably as international as a city can get? It would be tough to build an expansive airport terminal built to be efficient and add soul to it at the same time I think, barring a huge budget which allows ornateness to be built into every detail. Is there an airport terminal the same size as T1 or bigger which has this soul to illustrate? The only way I can think of to add soul into the terminal would be to make it even bigger so as to house retail and other pedestrian scale amenities or through increased architectural detail... basically throw even more money at an already expensive airport.

 

[Skeezix]

He said it contained the 'anywhere' bland and soulless elements that are found in so many other newer airports with no real distinquishing elements that make it unique or even connected to the city in any way. I should have been more clear.

Mmmmmmmm ... most airports that I have been to tend to have very few distinguishing elements that connect them to the city in which they are located. And when they do contain such elements, they tend to be ... as stated above ... kitsch.

 

[allabootmatt]

We could always put in a totem pole! I think that and the Haida canoe really say "Vancouver" when you get to YVR. I mean, nothing like appropriating the cultural symbols of a people that you've basically exterminated to give an airport 'soul,' right?

And don't get me started on the *!&#*& inukshuk.

 

[MisterF]

lol...you make a good point. The inukshuk is no more connected to Vancouver than a Tibetan monastery is connected to Shanghai.

 

[wyliepoon]

The new T-1 looks remarkably similar to the terminal at Incheon International Airport near Seoul, Korea. Take a look at the following photos...

Aerial view

Entrance

Departure check-in area (T-1's check-in area certainly beats this space by a mile, but you can see that the shape of the space is similar to T-1)

Arrivals Hall

Pier interior with moving walkway... a design which parallels our T-1

However the big difference with the Incheon airport is the Ground Transportation Centre, which is located where the huge parking garage is located at our T-1. If we get a downtown-airport train, perhaps we can order one of these to complete our twinning with Incheon.

 

[Filip]

Apparently this hasn't been officially announced yet - but Lufthansa is to start a Dusseldorf - Toronto route beginning in 2008. The aircraft in question will be an A330.

 

[Irishmonk]

Pearson desperately needs some greenery and floral arrangements just to offset the deadening whiteness of the place. The way it is now it reminds me of the white limbo zone in THX1138. Also, a bit of kitsch might be nice. People seem to love VAN because of all the "local" brick-a-brack, as well as the greenery and the water elements. And yet the terminal itself is architecturally pedestrian.

A sense of fun and playfullness need to be injected into Pearson and all airports since flight travel has become so miserable, stressful, and deadly serious. How about a sculpure of a giant moose having its hooves checked for explosives. Or having its antlers sawed off becuase they're a security risk. Or a flock of Canadian geese being escorted by a CF-18. Or a Mountie trying to decipher a blueprint of a 747 that he is holding upside down. Or a Don Cherry lounge where each seat features a design of one of his suits. Or an OPP brigade about to storm a beaver dam. Or an ultimate fighting cage with real hockey players (or robots if no players are available) fighting to the death. Or a...well, you get the point.

 

[p5connex]

^^This comment has been made a thousand times, and I can't agree more...oh and please don't become disuaded by the fact that some will say that the people provide the colour, or that its not in the nature of the building to have plants, because that couldn't be further from the truth.

p5

 

[CDL.TO]

I like to refer to T1New as "architecture of volume". It's big, but other than that architecture doesn't play much in to it. In terms of usabilty with regards to navigation and the comfort that it affords those who travel through, it really is great and it's difficult to describe the massive improvement over the facilities it replaced. But to claim that it is a marvel of architectural design is foolish, IMO. Basically, I think some forumers are stating that they see the terminal as a building that provides the deisgns that any modern terminal built in the world today should but with no attempt to make it unique unto itself, and I would agree.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Travellers provide all the colour, movement, sound and soul. The serene and emotionally neutral building is designed to be a vehicle for them to accomplish their objectives.

 

[p5connex]

^^Irishmonk- what did I tell you.

The airport isn't a marvel of architectural ingenuity at all- its a nicely designed building, which has some great details, but its far from a masterpiece...

p5

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Who wants to hang around the airport long enough to look for flowers? All people want from an airport is to get from the curb to the plane in as short a time as possible, in relatively nice surroundings.

And if there were flowers, the same people desperately wanting them would be the first to start bitching about the fees at the airport going up to pay for them.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Rather like Lady Bird Johnson and her 1960's Beautify America campaign of planting flowers along ugly highways, p5 continues to see our fine new airport building as a problem that must be solved through massive floral interventions.

 

[Sir Novelty Fashion]

All people want from an airport is to get from the curb to the plane in as short a time as possible, in relatively nice surroundings.

That's what people want, but not always what their airlines give them. As well, the fact that Pearson is positioning itself as a waypoint for international passengers transferring to points south and west means that its design needs to factor in purgatorial waits, too.

Not that I dislike its design at all. I don't find it neutral or unemotive; I find the whiteness simple and pleasing. T1 is a sunny place, plain and simple. What more could you ask?

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Flock wallpaper in a Fortuny pattern, apparently.