Join us for an art tour of the new Pittsburgh airport terminal

Pittsburgh International Airport’s opened its new $1.7 billion, 811,000 square-foot landside terminal to the public on Tuesday, 18 November, just in time for the beginning of the holiday travel season.

Designed by the architectural firms Gensler and HDR, in association with luis vidal + architects, the project also features upgrades to the airside facilities.

Highlights of the new terminal include a high-tech 12-lane security checkpoint, a streamlined baggage handling system, terrazzo flooring and a light-filled main hall with 38 steel, tree-shaped columns supporting a soaring, undulating wood ceiling dotted with 4,000 twinkling lights.

The new terminal also includes four landscaped outdoor terraces (two pre-security; two post-security), updated signage, a new parking garage and the removal of the automated people mover that moved passengers between the landside and airside terminals.

PIT new terminal Now, passengers reach their gates via a pedestrian tunnel shaped like the Fort Pitt Tunnel that welcomes drivers entering the city. In addition to cutting the journey time inside the airport, the tunnel’s lighting tunnel tracks local atmospheric conditions, creating a different journey at various times of the day.

PIT’s transformed terminal also features plenty of art

PIT’s Art in the Airport program creatively wove art — existing and brand new, permanent, and temporary, and by local, regional, and national artists — throughout the new facility.

Art was integrated even as the new building was being designed and engineered, Keny Marshal, PIT’s arts and culture manager, tells Runway Girl Network. “So we were able to showcase and do a lot more with less money than if we were coming in later to just decorate a space.”

As examples he cited, Adam Kuby’s “Cross Currents,” which is scored into the roadways and the garage façade as well as the colorful glass restroom entryways in both the landside terminal and the updated airside facility featuring work by Pittsburgh artists Chris Craychee, Ramon Riley, Carolina Loyola-Garcia, Njaimeh Njie, Christine Lorenz, Lori Hepner, Sharmistha Ray and Kim Beck.

One of the restroom murals by Njaimeh Njie. Image Harriet Baskas

“Pittsburgh,” a 28-foot long and equally wide kinetic mobile by famed artist Alexander Calder that has been in the airport’s collection for almost 70 years but never front-and-center. It is now the first thing travelers and airport visitors see when entering the main terminal atrium.

Calder sculpture with balloon arch. Image: Harriet Baskas

Sharp-eyed travelers who look down at the terrazzo flooring the departures level will spot some of the 58 leaves from 12 different native western Pennsylvania trees in Clayton Merrell’s “Forest Floor.”

One of Clayton Merrell's 58 aluminum leaves in the flooring.

One of Clayton Merrell’s 58 aluminum leaves. Image: Harriet Baskas

The aluminum leaves are actual size and associated with the tree columns that support the roof.

“So, a curious viewer could notice a single leaf, then begin to look for more, engaging in a kind of subtle scavenger hunt as they move through the space,” said artist Clayton Merrell, who also designed the original terrazzo floor for the airside terminal back in 2013.

Metal tree-like columns support the roof

In the bag claim level, passengers and visitors will find “Connections,” a series of hand-carved wood sculptures and a carved bench by Peru-born but now Erie, Pennsylvania-based Fredy Huaman Mallqui as well as “Luggage Thoughts” by Pittsburgh’s John Peña.

Fredy Huaman Mallqui -baggage wood sculpture

Fredy Huaman Mallqui’s wood sculptures. Image: Harriet Baskas

Peña’s colorful metal luggage sits atop four bag carousels with a split-flap display board in a ‘thought bubble’ above each one.

“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,” explained Peña, who encourages travelers to read the thoughts of the bag at Baggage Claim #3 all the way through.

“It has both a real-time existential discovery and also learns how to make pierogi,” he added.

John Peña Luggage thoughts. Image Harriet Baskas

When completed in December, the landside terminal escalators will offer riders snippets of Pittsburgh-centric sounds collected by the Los Angeles-based Narduli studio.

Additionally, international-arriving passengers will be greeted with Alisha Wormley’s two-part “Portals.”

One part features items found in the airport’s lost and found collection arranged in a Butterfly Nebula (pictured at top); the other is a brass and glass Orrery where the planets depict various immigrant communities.

“We’re in a glass and steel building that could be anywhere in the world,” said Renee Piechocki, PIT’s public art consultant, “but because of the artwork and other design features, you know you’re here in Pittsburgh.”