Watch
the video tour inside Terminal 5, ahead of its opening
Travel will revert to its glamour days with the opening of Terminal 5, we’re
told, by British Airways chairman Martin Broughton in our video above.
He was speaking to us from one of the airline’s new lounges at Terminal 5,
where it was hard to argue with him – behind us the final touches were being
put to a champagne bar, spa and a series of striking art installations.
Art is not a new venture for BA. The carrier has a collection of over 1,500
works by artists including Peter Doig, who is currently exhibiting at the Tate
Britain, and Anish Kapoor, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst.
Sadly only BA staff and a minority of its passengers enjoy these works because
they are hung at the BA headquarters at Waterside, near Heathrow, and in
airport lounges around the world, accessible only to premium passengers and
frequent flyers.
This won’t change with the opening of the BA-only Terminal 5 on March 27.
While the majority of passengers using the terminal will pass the time in
the luxury shops and restaurants of the main building, premium passengers
will be treated to one-off artworks as well as the usual perks of champagne
and nibbles in the various BA lounges.
BA has spent £60 million developing six lounges in Terminal 5, with a large
chunk of this spent on commissioned art installations, from paintings to
ground-breaking illuminating sculptures and moving wallpaper.
BA has used Artwise, a curating
practice with which it has a long relationship, to source art for its
Terminal 5 lounges. Among the new pieces being hung in the lounges are three
by Christopher Pearson, the
artist we interviewed in the video above.
On the day we were filming, the installation hanging outside the lounges, The
Cloud by artist collaboration Troika,
was not switched on. A YouTube
video shows the installation of hanging sculpture, which uses the flip
dot technology that is used in many railway station boards to flick from
black to shimmering silver.
But it’s not all about art – the building design and views at Terminal 5 are
also expected to please passengers. Rather like the vision that architect
Norman Foster had for Stansted airport, the Richard Rogers Partnership, the
architects behind Terminal 5, have used glass and steel liberally to
maximise natural light and offer captivating views of the runway.
The shops and restaurants will also be a distraction – alongside airport
regulars such as Duty Free, WH Smith and Boots, are names like Paul Smith,
which will sell airport exclusive products, Tiffany’s, which will be the
first airport outlet in Europe, and Gordon Ramsay, with his first airport
restaurant. Hot fast food companies like McDonalds and Burger King are
notable by their absence.
The £4.3 billion project has its fair share of critics. A report in The
Observer claimed that passengers at nearly half of the terminal’s
departure gates will be bussed to planes, rather than being able to reach
them on foot by air bridges. This is refuted by BA, which says that the
figure is closer to 20 per cent. The gates at Terminal 5 are either located
in the main terminal building or the two satellite buildings, Satellite B
and Satellite C.
