70,000 AIRCRAFT TAKE off and land every year at Cannes-Mandelieu Airport. Private planes packed with the jetset on their way to the French Riviera are not an uncommon sight. Many of them park in the airport’s new hangar, designed by French architects Comte Vollenweider.
In the middle of the building, Cessna and Falcon private jets can be driven in and out through the gigantic 35 metre-wide door, while the back corners of the building, with their curvaceous lines, house office space for the airport’s employees. Electromagnetic radiation from the airport’s instruments made wood the most suitable choice for the structure.
The hangar’s load-bearing frame is made from pine glulam beams. The height of the beams varies between 560 and 790 millimetres. The V-shaped diagonals create an attractive and flexible design. The façade is dominated by the triangular windows, which have flat glass mounted in parallel with three-dimensional, pyramid shaped panes. Between these sit narrow ribs of pine.«
