A Terminal Worthy of a Pilgrimage
Tags: Architecture, Hajj, Transportation, Design, Airports

This ingenious, large-scale, and unprecedented solution could not be replicated in an enclosed terminal, but it informed the principle of displacement ventilation and was assisted by the introduction of “air towers” at the ground level. Viewing early photographs of the Hajj Terminal in use, one’s eye goes to either the pilgrims in their distinctive national garb or to the billowing tent structures overhead. However, look closely and you will see a series of octagonal pylons with rows of nozzles around them. These “air towers” deliver fresh air at the occupied level to assist the stack effect of the tents and provide additional temperature mitigation for the pilgrims.

Air towers cool the expansive area at ground level while hot air escapes from the tops of the tents. Photo © Jay Langlois | Owens-Corning

From the 1990s on, such air towers have become commonplace in contemporary airport terminal design as a means of delivering conditioned air from below within high-ceiling spaces. The Hajj Terminal is the first large-scale use of this technique.

When pilgrims arrive at the Hajj Terminal and pass through immigration and customs, they might spend a dozen hours waiting for organized transport to Mecca or Medina. Most of the terminal’s surface area consists of these waiting areas. The open area is divided into five large modules measuring 135 by 300 meters. These modules provide a clear path from customs to curb and back to check-in upon departure. Each module is provided with essential services and discrete group waiting areas, some with cooking facilities. This arrangement allowed for a sense of national identity within the global community of the faithful gathering for the Hajj.

Many designers today are planning outdoor areas for new terminals. The ultimate source of this idea is standing in Jeddah.

Setting aside the religious dimension, contemporary airport terminal design attempts to break down the immense scale of the building into areas that are more comprehensible and inviting, without losing the sense of general orientation and wayfinding that is also necessary to navigate such spaces. This “passenger experience” dimension of the Hajj Terminal design is not fully appreciated.

Born of necessity, it turns out that the open-air format of the Hajj Terminal provides healthier conditions during the current pandemic, allowing the sunlight, natural humidity, and air movement to create a safer environment than a densely packed interior space. Many designers today are planning outdoor areas for new terminals, and a few small terminals that are mainly open air in benign climates have received renewed attention. The ultimate source of this idea is standing in Jeddah.

These design moves are closely bound up with the form, function, and technology of the superstructure, but are transferrable to more conventional systems for fully enclosed and conditioned terminals. And that is what happened. Most of these strategies are taken for granted today, but were unknown or uncommon when the Hajj Terminal was designed. The utterly unique and singular purpose of the terminal for the pilgrimage has meant that the Hajj Terminal’s influence has gone largely unacknowledged. The terminal became known only for the tents, while its other innovations were obscured by a superficial understanding of what lies beneath them.

Pilgrim tents during Hajj. Photo © SOM

Finally, the matter of the tents — the salient visual feature of the Hajj Terminal. Along with the tapering steel columns and cable system, they form perhaps the most perfect synthesis of visionary architecture, advanced structural engineering, technical mastery of new materials — all in a form that is deeply resonant of the place and representative of its function. There have been superficial imitations in terminals large and small, but no subsequent use of a fabric roof structure that so elegantly plays many roles. In addition to forming a relatively lightweight covering for a vast area, and performing a key role in mitigating the high ambient temperatures of Jeddah’s climate — almost no matter the season in which the Hajj falls — the conical form of the Hajj Terminal cells allude in the subtlest way to the canvas tents erected by and for the pilgrims in vast camps around Mecca and Medina since the earliest centuries of the Hajj. Some 45,000 tents are still erected to house pilgrims not staying in the increasing number of hotels and hostelries.

In my view, it is critical to an appreciation of the achievement of the Hajj Terminal to know that the designers first envisioned a fully enclosed and mechanically cooled terminal. They did not start with a superficial mimicking of the pilgrim tents. Numerous post-war architects had dreamed of realizing in permanent form the concepts of lightweight exhibition structures of the 1920s and 1930s, such as those designed by Le Corbusier. Even considering the large tensile structures for sports venues of the 1960s and 70s designed by Frei Otto, the technical prowess achieved in Jeddah of scaling up multiple innovations to colossal size in relatively new materials and systems is impressive.

In the end, the structural rationale of the terminal, growing from the functionality and flexibility of the square grid, and rising through the anticlastic stretching of the high-tech fabric, arrived at an allusion to the pilgrim tents. The reference could not have been lost on the waves of pilgrims. The aptness could not be more profound. The synthesis of architecture, function, structure, environment and culture no more complete. These remain central aspirations for terminal designers today. There may be no building more seminal to its type than the Hajj Terminal, yet largely unknown today. The result was both deeply resonant and entirely new.

General view of western, unfinished half of Hajj Terminal. Photo © Jay Langlois | Owens-Corning

Several years ago I had the good fortune to be able to make my own secular pilgrimage to the Hajj Terminal. It did not disappoint. The terminal’s immense size makes an instant impression. Although there are no other buildings around it to lend a sense of scale, the terminal seems to hover high above the desert. It is true that the “furniture” — the functional partitions and passenger services at the ground plane — needs upgrading for operational, commercial, and climatic reasons, after decades of use. But the brilliant, truly awe-inspiring framework remains.

The one great surprise for me was to see that the west half — all 230,000 square meters of sheltered area — was never finished with the passenger facilities at the ground level. The superstructure of tents looms over the rough ground — not like a ruin that has been diminished by time, but a luminous shelter waiting to be inhabited by the next generation of pilgrims. Would this not be an ideal canvas on which to design a model pandemic-resistant terminal for this new age? As they say in Arabic, “inshallah.”