The title of the world’s most beautiful airport for 2025 has been awarded, and surprisingly, it’s not the famous Singapore Changi. This year, UNESCO’s prestigious Prix Versailles awards, which celebrate architectural excellence worldwide, recognised a collection of airports that combine breathtaking design, sustainability, and local culture. The airport that earned the top spot this year is Yantai Penglai International Airport in China.
Its newly opened Terminal 2 has been praised for its elegant design, environmentally conscious construction, and thoughtful integration of local culture and natural surroundings. Opened in 2024, Terminal 2 at Yantai Penglai International Airport was designed to celebrate the city’s coastal and mountainous landscapes.
The airport was designed by Aedas in collaboration with CSWADI and the Shanghai New Era Airport Design and Research Institute.
The terminal’s sweeping roofline is inspired by the nearby Kunyu Mountains, while wave-shaped ceilings and abundant skylights evoke the region’s unique coastal scenery. Inside, landscaped atriums, open spaces, and natural light create a calm and welcoming atmosphere for passengers.
The terminal spans an impressive 167,000 square metres and is designed with flexible gate arrangements and integrated rail links, ensuring that passengers can move through the space smoothly and efficiently.
In second place is France’s Marseille Provence Airport, Terminal 1, followed by Roland Garros Airport’s Arrivals Terminal on Réunion Island in third.
Marseille’s Terminal 1 stands 22 metres tall, with a new central hall that features large glazed sections and skylights framed in polished aluminium, allowing natural ventilation and flooding the interior with daylight. Around 70% of the steel used in the construction was recycled, reflecting a commitment to sustainable materials alongside striking design.
Roland Garros Airport’s Arrivals Terminal has earned recognition for its 13,000-square-metre bioclimatic extension, designed by AIA Life Designers.
Lauded as the world’s first tropical bioclimatic terminal of this scale, the project was carried out in close collaboration with local businesses, with 91% of the construction work completed by companies based on the island, supporting the local economy while delivering a forward-thinking, environmentally sensitive design.
Jérôme Gouadain, Secretary General of the Prix Versailles said: “The mark left by airports stems chiefly from their ever-growing role in international exchanges.
“As a result, this infrastructure must resolve formidable difficulties in terms of flow management and the aircraft themselves. But this new brand of facilities can also be seen as works of art, or at least as things of beauty.
“In fact, we should strive to make this happen, given their inescapability in our built environments and our landscapes. Orientated towards operational, ecological and aesthetic excellence, these hubs also convey shared values, culture or even a tribute to the past, out of respect for the legacies left behind by earlier generations.
“In the light of the planetary challenges facing us today, it is time for these expressive images of our contemporary heritage to be asserted as symbols of humankind’s internal dialogue.”