Documents to download: 

> Plans and sections 

> 8 March 1974, the day we inaugurated the airport...

> Paris CDG-1 (text complete)
   by Paul Andreu and Nathalie Roseau

> Text taken from the book: 50 air terminals

​

Vidéos :

> Inauguration - 08 March 1974

> Documentary « CDG1, an airport for man »

 

 

Charles de Gaulle Airport , Terminal 1

 

A Circular Layout

Functional considerations underpin the design of Terminal 1 at Roissy - Charles-de-Gaulle. The need to shorten travel distances for passengers, for instance, informed the circular layout of the main building and then the winding forms of ail the secondary structures. The airplanes surround the satellites, and these in turn surround the central building. The area where the planes circulate and park is in the shape of a loop.

The access roads cut right through to the main building, passing under this ring and spiraling up around it all the way to the car park on the top floors. The general layout of Terminal 1 clearly conveys its function as an interchange site between ground and air transit: travelers approaching the airport can see from a distance the car park surrounded by roads in the midst of aircraft; they can perceive the lines on the ground and sense those in the air that converge on this central point and then recede.

Around the main building, 190 meters in diameter, are seven trapezoid satellites. The central building obeys the geometry of a circle and its capacity to lend itself to models of convergence and concentration, divergence and dispersion. Its functioning can be compared with a pump or, rather, a heart. In construction terms, the building is divided into nine parts, two corresponding to the roads and seven to the satellites. To facilitate its construction in reinforced concrete, the circle is broken down into adjacent rectangles and triangles, with the former housing the technical equipment.

​

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Theoretical capacity

• annual traffic:

9.6 million passengers

• peak hour traffic:

3,300 passengers

Aircraft stands

51 contact stands

21 remote stands

Terminal building area

195,000 sq m for the main building

53,000 sq m for the seven satellites

Levels of the main building

• level 1: baggage sorting

• level 2: shops and offices

• level 3: departures

• level 4: transfers (access to planes)

• level 5: arrivais

• level 6: technical and

administrative support facilities,

access to car park

• levels 7, 8 and 9: parking facilities

• level 10: offices

Equipment

• at departures: 159 check-in

counters

• at arrivais: 8 baggage carrousels

Car Park

6,900 bays (3,600 at remote

facilities)

​

​