Pittsburgh International Airport‘s (PIT) new $1.7 billion, 811,000 square-foot landside terminal opened in mid-November, just in time for the busy holiday travel season.
The project is designed by the architectural firms Gensler and HDR, in association with luis vidal + architects and also includes upgrades to the airside facilities.
We visited a few months before and then at the end of opening day, when everyone associated with the project was still exhausted and, rightfully, giddy.
For most travelers, the highlights of the new terminal are the 12-lane security checkpoint, the faster baggage handling system, the new parking garage and the elimination of the train between the landside and airside terminals.
There are also four outdoor patios that will be finished this spring.
Passengers now enter the terminal via a light-filled main hall with 38 steel, tree-shaped columns supporting a soaring, undulating wood ceiling dotted with 4,000 constellation lights.
And once past security, the journey to the gates is via a pedestrian tunnel meant to evoke the Fort Pitt Tunnel that welcomes drivers entering the city.
Nice, right?
PIT Airport’s new and refreshed art
For us, the best part of PIT’s new landside and refreshed airside terminals is all the art.
The collection includes both existing and brand new work by local, regional and national artists.
Front and center is “Pittsburgh,” a 28-foot long and equally wide kinetic mobile by famed artist Alexander Calder.
Valued now at about $12 million, the piece has been in the airport’s collection for almost 70 years.
But it has never really been given a spot where it could be easily viewed and appreciated.
Now it’s the first thing travelers and airport visitors see when they enter the main terminal atrium.
In a story we did in November for the Runway Girl Network, we highlighted the Calder sculpture and many of the new art pieces at PIT.
There’s also an inclusive guide to PIT’s visual art collection on the airport website.
There you’ll see images and descriptions of Adam Kuby’s “Cross Currents,” which is scored into the roadways and the garage façade.
You’ll also see photos of the colorful glass restroom entryways in both the landside terminal and the updated airside facility.
These works are by Pittsburgh artists Chris Craychee, Ramon Riley, Carolina Loyola-Garcia, Njaimeh Njie, Christine Lorenz, Lori Hepner, Sharmistha Ray and Kim Beck.
(Artist: Njaimeh Njie)
In the new landside terminal, the terrazzo flooring on the departures level has 58 leaves from 12 different native western Pennsylvania trees in Clayton Merrell’s “Forest Floor.”
These aluminum leaves are actual size and associated with the tree columns that support the roof.
The 13,000 square feet of new terrazo flooring is an extension of “The Sky Beneath our Feet,” the 82,000 square-foot terrazzo sky floor that Merrell created for the airside terminal back in 2013.
“In the original project, space is inverted by bringing the sky down beneath us,” Merrell told us. “In the new section, space is flipped back again by introducing a reflection — the new section appearing to be the reflection of the sky on the surface of water.”
In the bag claim level, our favorite pieces is “Luggage Thoughts” by Pittsburgh’s John Peña.
Colorful metal luggage sits on top of the four bag carousels.
And each features a “thought bubble” in an activated split-flap display board.
“Baggage Claim #1 and #4 make a lot more observations overall, while Baggage Claim #2 sleeps most of the time and will occasionally snore and wake itself up,” said Peña, while the bag at Bag Claim #3, “has both a real-time existential discovery and also learns how to make pierogi.”
International arriving passengers get a treat too.
Alisha Wormley’s 2-part “Portals” features items found in the airport’s lost and found collection arranged in a Butterfly Nebula and a brass and glass Orrery where the planets depict various immigrant communities.
