Pittsburgh is getting a new museum — the airport.
While that’s not literally true, Pittsburgh International Airport’s new terminal already feels like a gallery. The building itself is open and airy, and at its center newly hangs Alexander Calder’s mobile titled “Pittsburgh,” which slowly twists as air currents pass through the space. But it’s the details, including new installations by local artists, that really elevate the experience.
“The idea from the beginning was not to build an airport in Pittsburgh, but to build a Pittsburgh airport,” PIT CEO Christina Cassotis told the media as power tools whirred in the background. “It needed to reflect and serve this community by bringing in the assets of the community and putting them on display for the world.”
Per Cassotis, 80% of the art in the new terminal is by local artists. In the departures terminal, that includes leaves by Clayton Merrell embedded in the floor, and wooden enclosures made from reclaimed white oak by local shop Urban Tree. Everything from the bathroom tile to the walls of the parking garage is packed with Pittsburgh-specific details.
Cassotis and others said there’s intention behind many of the works. That includes helping passengers navigate the new terminal.
“Working with art and letting art be part of the wayfinding passenger experience is one of the most important things we can do,” PIT manager of arts and culture Keny Marshall said. “So when we look at where art is located, we look at not only grand gestures, but also look at how people are moving through the space.”
For passengers nostalgic for the old space, Merrell’s embedded leaves on the departures level — which wink from, or blend with, the subtly-patterned terrazzo, depending on your angle — call out to details in the old landside terminal.
“We came up with this very, very quiet, almost invisible, little intervention here that lifts up the idea that these columns look an awful lot like trees that are upholding this wonderful wooden roof,” Merrell said. “And so, underneath 12 of these giant columns in the terminal, there are 12 different species of tree leaves that have sort of sprinkled down onto the floor.”
The new terminal’s bathrooms are much larger than the ones they’ll replace, and have been given a corresponding amount of attention. (Of note: there are gender-neutral restrooms and changing tables in both men’s and women’s facilities.) Inside, grooved tilework by artist Brian Peters, who builds his own 3D printers, recalls local topography. Extruded backsplash tilework by Limelight Tile & Ceramics will feature custom-crafted flower holders and coathooks.
And each floor of the terminal’s restroom bays features a different artist’s work on broad glass walls, including collagework by Njaimeh Njie on the arrivals level that shows scenes of daily life in Pittsburgh against photographic backdrop of the city’s hills and bridges.
“I combined images of Pittsburgh that I had taken or made with found images from magazines, different publications,” Njie told Pittsburgh City Paper. “All of the faces are covered with different paper materials, just so that people are not focused on specific details of any individual face, but they can kind of make these people who they want.”
Also on the arrivals level are nebulae of lost-and-found items by Alisha B. Wormsley, thought-bubble suitcases with split-flap displays that whirr like cicadas by John Peña, and organic sculptures, accompanied by a matching bench, carved from locally salvaged tree trunks by Fredy Huaman Mallqui. Each installation turns that section of the building into its own exhibition — if your luggage arrives by the snoozing suitcase at baggage claim 2, you’ll have a completely different experience than if it pops up beneath the “Connections” carvings at baggage claim 6.
Amid all these other artworks, Calder’s “Pittsburgh,” which was an early laurel for the artist when it won the Carnegie Prize at the 1958 Carnegie International, finally feels truly at home. The work has had its own colorful history. In a way, the piece’s history mirrors the city’s and, now, the airport’s.
“People now love Calder. He’s become such a beloved figure of abstract art. But in the late ’50s, I think this was still a pretty weird, foreign object,” University of Pittsburgh art historian Alex Taylor, who worked with the airport on relocating Calder’s work, said. Taylor said the mobile was repainted and fixed in place against the artist’s wishes before being restored. After the old landside terminal was completed in 1992, it hung in the mezzanine. Marshall said it also underwent careful conservation in Ohio to restore it to its full original glory.
Now, “Pittsburgh” dazzles at the center of a terminal that tells the story of a city on the rise. While the terminal was designed to expedite travel for PIT passengers, it’s easy to imagine someone letting their bag go around the carousel one more loop to spend another minute enjoying the art.
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2025.
