London Heathrow Terminal 5: Feeling like a steel ball

We raced through the new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow Airport on Sunday, Feb. 19, so I'm not in a position to make a thorough report. However, I can say that the place reminded me of the gigantic warehouse in Charlie Kaufmann's film 'Synecdoche, New York' -- the one in which a theater director builds a full-scale model of Manhattan as his set. Terminal 5, with its enormous curving roof, seemed to have room for all that and more.

Here's the movie set, followed by the terminal's interior.



I know the long-awaited Terminal 5 (opened in 2008, but in the works since 1982) is a marvel of modernity. I know it was built to help Heathrow maintain its position as a leading international air hub. I know it was intended to be a worthy home base for British Airways, the sole tenant. I know architect Richard Rogers is the most popular designer in London since Christopher Wren. I know it's the largest free-standing structure in Britain, and that the much-vaunted curving roof covers more ground than five football pitches.


I know all that. But the thing is, Terminal 5 left me cold.

Perhaps it's too big -- maybe there's a difference between creating a cathedral to coming and going to celebrate travel, and making a traveler feel insignificant by dwarfing him or her.


Or maybe it's a lack of integrity. In an attempt to be "international" (and keep up with the zippy designs sprouting at airports in Hong Kong, Dubai, Bangkok, and so on) Rogers created something that's shiny and new, yes, but completely devoid of anything that feels...well, British.

Really. Once we stepped off the Underground (the Piccadilly Line runs right into the lower level, £5, an hour from central London, a great deal), we were captives of some glass-and-steel-tube future that was without warmth or charm. Look up, and the only human element in this scene is, strangely, someone's feet on a glass walkway, making you feel like an insect about to be squashed as you enter this facility.


I'm not saying Terminal 5 should look like the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Abby. I'm not really sure what might have worked, but then I'm not a brilliant architect. I do know that Terminal 5, at least from the inside, might have been an airport anywhere in the world, duty-free shops and all. And what a wasted opportunity.


Okay, back to the Underground. Put aside that "squashed bug" imagery. As I experienced Terminal 5, it made me feel like a steel ball in an arcade game. We started at the very bottom, and then in one go a glass elevator pushed us all the way to the very top level, where check-in took place. Here we are tottering out of the elevator and suddenly traversing a great chasm to reach the counters.


After check-in, We then went down to a massive Duty Free shopping area. Here it is in all its glory. Quick, what country are we in? Taiwan? Vancouver?


Then, when our gate was announced, we went down again to another level. It started to feel like parts of Tokyo, which are so built up that you're never quite sure where solid ground really is.


Conspicuous in the waiting lounge were oversized (and over-designed) sofas, which, like everything else in Terminal 5, made one feel small: yes, like a steel ball in a pinball machine.


Too much technology department: I was surprised to see that at Terminal 5, the plastic bins for loose items going through security were controlled by a remote-controlled belt system -- not just for going through the machine itself, but for their entire journey. So after your stuff comes out, you might be putting on your belt, and suddenly your bin (with all your stuff in it) goes racing along the belt and in front of someone else. This made me feel a bit like Lucille Ball trying to keep up with the chocolate assembly line, and contributed to the terminal's cold feeling.


But what really surprised me about Terminal 5 was that for all its brand-spanking-new modernity, to get to reach our flight to Boston, we actually had to board buses, ride way out on the tarmac, and then all clamber up stairs to our plane as if we were in New York's Idlewild Airport and it was 1959. All that money and effort, and passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight start their journey standing on a bus!

I didn't really mind, as the tarmac ride (a lengthy one) produced low-level close encounters with some big birds:


But passengers seemed non-plussed, to say the least, to be boarding a trans-Atlantic flight as if it were a regional jet flight from, say, Manchester, N.H. to Cleveland. Here we are, scrambling up a mobile staircase with a plastic weather covering that was absolutely filthy.





How about a picture of the majestic machine that will transport us across the ocean in a matter of hours?


So much for the magic of air transport, at least as experienced via British Airways at Terminal 5. All I can assume is that the facility is already suffering capacity issues, even with two mid-field concourses now open. So don't be surprised if your British Airways flight out of London begins with a long bus ride out to some remote corner of Heathrow. Dress accordingly, and also be at the gate at least an hour before departure so you don't miss the bus.