We all like to complain about airports: the weary security lines, the eternal delays, the pricey (and often horrible) food…But if you look hard enough they do have some hidden gems that will make your journey a bit more exciting.

We all like to complain about airports: the weary security lines, the eternal delays, the pricey (and often horrible) food…But if you look hard enough they do have some hidden gems that will make your journey a bit more exciting.

Here are a few of the best artworks, installations and sculptures featured in airports around the globe:

 

Slipstream7 1

Source: The Guardian

Slipstream 

Richard Wilson

Heathrow’s new Terminal 2, London

Everything leaves an invisible trail and, as the artist explains, with this installation he wanted to “make this trail tangible, expressing the velocity and acceleration of flight”. It is the largest public sculpture in Europe, stretching to 80 metres and weighing 77 tonnes, and it promises to leave a big impression on the 20 million visitors who will pass beneath it every year.

 

Every Beating Second The GuardianSource: The Telegraph

Every Beating Second

Janet Echelman

San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2, USA

Despite its large scale, more than 120 feet in circumference, this sculpture is experienced as ephemeral and weightless, evoking the contours and colours of cloud formations and the silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge. The installation seems to come out of three round skylights in the ceiling, descending delicate translucent layers that simulate the summer solstice penetrating through the roof.

 

That Holiday Kinetic Rain

Source: The Times

Kinetic Rain

Art+Com

Changi Airport Terminal 1, Singapore

With a stunning size of 75 square metres and a height of 7.3 metres, this moving installation has become the world’s largest kinetic sculpture. Created over a period of two years by artists, animators and programmers from the German design firm Art+Com, the installation is programmed to make the elements morph into 16 different shapes during a 15-minute loop, including airplanes, kites or hot air balloons.

 

teddy bear The Times

Source: Qatar Museums Authority

Teddy Bear sculture

Urs Fischer

Hamad International Airport, Qatar

This $6.8m sculpture of a teddy bear mixed with a lamp brightly celebrates the objects that define a young child’s life. Weighing 35,000 pounds and standing 23 feet tall, it was previously displayed in front of the Seagram Building on New York’s Park Avenue.

 

the journey

Source: utsandiego.com

The Journeys

Jim Campbell

San Diego International Airport, USA 

This ribbon of light is composed of 37,000 LED light pendants hanging row after row for 1,000 feet. Its most surprising feature is the shadows of birds flying intermittently along the light ribbon, something which invites people to interact with the light and to follow the playful flights across the path.

 

Is there any other great airport art you would add to our list? Do share with us!