One of the largest airports in the world

This important building, whose design was created by architects Antonio Lamela and Richard Rogers, has become one of the greatest feats in airport construction in the world.

The primary objectives of Project NAT (the Spanish acronym for "New Terminal Area") were an innovative design that would last, modular implementation of construction, flexibility for possible future expansions and a good connection to the ground transport system.


The basic principles of design on which the adopted solution rests are flexibility, clarity, daylight and a concept of the landscape that pulls in diverse buildings. Foremost among the buildings comprising the NAT is the NET, or New Terminal Building. With its floor area of 470,000 m2 and length of 1,142 metres, it is one of the largest buildings constructed in Europe.

Its area is the equivalent of 5,000 average-sized homes or a 470-storey skyscraper measuring 1,000 m2 at its base-Such a skyscraper would be over 1,000 metres tall if it could ever be built. The main works execution figures show that, among other things, the NET required the excavation of 3,000,000 m3 of soil and it used 350,000 tons of corrugated steel and, for its structure, 30,000 tons of laminated steel girders.