Reproduction Norman Foster I Aéroport international de Hong Kong, Hong Kong (Chine), 1992-1998

Description

Lying at the hub of a global region that reaches across Asia and Australasia, Chek Lap Kok is one of the world's largest and most advanced airports. Completed in 1998 as Hong Kong's sole air terminal, by 2040 it is expected to handle eighty million passengers per annum - the equivalent of London's Heathrow and New York's JFK airports combined. Among the most ambitious construction projects of modern times, the land on which the airport stands was once a mountainous island. In a major reclamation programme, its 100-metre peak was reduced to 7 metres above sea level and the island was expanded to four times its original area - equal to the size of the Kowloon Peninsula.

There is the rippling, scalloped curve of the roof as it swoops down to greet you at the car drop-off point, the multi-levelled space that punches up through the building to take you from the underground railway station to the check-in desks. The roof rises to a crescendo over the departure hall, then sweeps down again towards the tarmac, gently ushering you towards the planes.

Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum