For its next trick, Portland International Airport has transformed its main terminal into a forest clearing.
Although visitors are technically on Northeast Airport Way on the industrial outskirts of Portland, entering the new main terminal, which was unveiled to the public on Wednesday, feels like they have been transported to a completely different place.
Now the curtains that have blocked the view of most of the terminal for the past three years have been removed, and visitors are greeted by a massive 36,000-square-foot wood-beamed ceiling with 49 skylights letting in dappled sunlight, two giant screens showing changing nature scenes and, ultimately, over 5,000 plants, including real, living trees.
“It doesn’t feel like Portland Airport anymore,” Mike Burling said Wednesday morning.
Burling is from Portland and is on his way to France with his wife and daughter.
“We were just standing there, completely stunned,” said his wife, Dana Burling, as the three stood at the edge of the new, sprawling common area in front of the security checkpoint.
“It has a different atmosphere,” said her daughter Sarah Burling.
Other visitors also noticed the changed mood on Wednesday.
Maryori Delgado and Hannah Contreras had just flown from Las Vegas, where they had a ten-hour stopover.
“I love it,” Contreras said. “Compared to Las Vegas. It was really depressing there.”
“It’s very quiet and relaxing,” Delgado added.
Both women will begin college in the fall. Contreras plans to study architecture and found the design of the new terminal inspiring.
“I love it, especially since they added trees and the ceiling,” Contreras said. “Everything is so well combined. It’s really amazing.”
One of the biggest changes to the new terminal is the openness and availability of different seating options, something that PDX visitors have rarely found in recent years.
Beatriz Gaspar and Cecelia Jacobo of Salem sat on the stadium’s new wooden seats, waiting to pick up Gaspar’s friend and Jacobo’s daughter.
In Spanish, Jacobo called the new terminal beautiful and different. She noted that she especially liked the ceiling.
Gaspar was impressed by the new terminal and was happy about the more space before the security check.
“It’s really cool that they thought of providing some seating for people waiting for arrivals,” Gaspar said.
Many people took advantage of the new seating, made themselves comfortable in the new stadium seats and watched the huge video screens.
“The calming architecture is intentional,” said Curtis Robinhold, executive director of the Port of Portland, standing on a landing decorated with a recreated version of the classic airport carpet.
Take, for example, the two 120-foot-wide, 20-foot-tall screens that use video game software to display rotating scenes that change with time, weather, and even the number of people in the terminal.
A final video piece in the sequence is by a visual artist who will be transitioning. Currently on view is the dramatic work of Ivan McClellan, who photographs black cowboys.
The idea behind it, says Robinhold, is that the design should calm visitors down when the most stressful part of their journey begins.
“We put a carpet there to soften the floor,” he said.
The lighting is more subdued than the normal, interrogation-like lighting of the security checkpoint.
“And the video screen,” Robinhold said. “When you’re waiting in line, you can relax a little bit and watch something that takes your mind off of, ‘Oh God, I have to take my shoes off or whatever.'”
This is the first phase of a $2.15 billion project funded by the airlines that fly out of PDX. The north and south areas of the terminal are now closed for the next phase of the project, which is expected to be completed in early 2026.
The new terminal was originally scheduled to open in May, but the schedule was pushed back for safety reasons for workers, Robinhold said.
“We slowed down because we were in a hurry to finish on time and there were three incidents in 10 days where nobody was hurt, but it was scary,” he said. “Someone could have been hurt.”
So they stopped working for three days and then returned at a safer pace.
“And we are now at 5.4 million working hours without any serious incidents,” said Robinhold.
The project is a local matter.
It has employed 30,000 people and used wood from the Willamette Valley and Yakama Nation. It has brought new local businesses to the airport, including a bright pink stationery store called PiPH by Paper Epiphanies and leather goods store Orox.
“The idea is that when you walk in here, you really know you’re in the Pacific Northwest,” Robinhold said. “And I get goosebumps saying that because I hate walking into an airport and seeing that sterile white and chrome, some glass. I could be in Shanghai. I could be in Austin. I have no idea.”
Anyone entering PDX on Wednesday should know exactly where they are – no, not a meadow in the woods, but Portland Airport, which once again is unlike any other.
– Lizzy Acker reports on life and culture and writes the advice column But why? You can reach them at 503-221-8052, [email protected] or @lizzzyacker
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