The contract, worth some EUR 150 million, was signed on Thursday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Foster+Partners, a global firm of architects, engineers and urban designers, and Buro Happold, an international engineering consultancy, have committed to designing the mega-airport’s key facilities, including a passenger terminal, a railway station and a public transport interchange, by the middle of 2023, officials said.
Marcin Horała, the Polish government’s pointman for the construction of the mega-airport, told a news conference: “The CPK is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in our part of Europe. Despite its enormous scale, we are delivering it on schedule, reaching successive milestones.”
He added: “Today, we are reaching one of the most important milestones: launching cooperation with the project’s master architect, who will have the biggest say over the shape of the new mega-airport.”
Horała, who is also a deputy minister in charge of European Union funds and regional policy, said that the new airport would “rank among Europe’s biggest, meet Polish needs and aspirations,” and be designed by “some of Europe’s leading architects.”
“Construction work will start in early 2023,” he added.
Meanwhile, the UK ambassador to Poland, Anna Clunes, said the choice of Foster+Partners, whose proposal “strives to capture the essence of Poland” represented another example of the development of "the British-Polish partnership."
She added that the UK government would continue to support the project and that CPK would become a world-class success.
The new Polish air hub will be located in the municipality of Baranów, 40 km west of the capital Warsaw, and will integrate air, rail and road transport, according to officials.
The 3,000-hectare mega-airport, with an initial capacity of 40 million passengers a year, is expected to be built by 2027, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, tvp.info