Flurry of famed architects submit designs for Trump airport terminal
Multiple well-known architecture studios, including Zaha Hadid Architects and Grimshaw, have created proposals for Washington Dulles Airport, following president Donald Trump's call for a redesign.
The studios responded to the Department of Transportation's (DOT) request for information (RFI) released in early December 2025, which called for proposals to "replace or build upon the existing main terminal and satellite concourses at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)", with proposed designs.
Though nowhere in the request for information is there any explicit mention of terminal names, a proposal by Bermello Ajamil & Partners in partnership with Zaha Hadid Architects features fleshed-out renderings with Donald J Trump Terminal affixed to a prospective structure.
Republican lawmakers have been pushing for the renaming of the airport since before Trump's second inaguaration.
London-based Grimshaw and infrastructure firm Ferrovial, created a proposal that features a sweeping accordion ceiling structure accompanied by a masterplan that reorganises other facility buildings, such as parking structures.
Other proposals from studios such as AECOM and Adjaye Associates included text-based proposals but did not feature renderings or new designs.
The proposals come after Trump remarked on the "incorrectly designed" terminals and called Washington Dulles Airport a "terrible airport".
One of the main contentions over the project has been the historic status of its Eero Saarinen designed terminal, which Trump commended when he commented on the overall bad design of the airport.
"Actually, it's got a beautiful terminal – one of the greatest architects in the world at the time," he said at the time. "And so they have a great building and a bad airport, but we're gonna turn that around."
Conservation group Doconomo responded to the RFI expressing "serious concern" over the project's impact on the 1962 Saarinen building.
Its response expresses "serious concern regarding any revitalisation initiative that could result in the substantial alteration or demolition of Eero Saarinen's Main Terminal at Washington Dulles International Airport".
The original RFI did not state the historic building must be retained.
"The department will also accept submissions that propose to retain portions of the existing airport facilities, including, for example, by incorporating all or part of the historic Eero Saarinen-designed main terminal into a new terminal building," said the RFI.
"Once known for its iconic aerofoil-inspired main terminal designed by Eero Saarinen, the airport is now better known for its inefficient system of people movers that deliver passengers as much as a half mile or more away from their gates, its infamous moon-rover-like 'mobile lounges', jet fuel smell in the concourses, and a paltry number of gates at the main terminal," it continued.
"In short, Washington Dulles International Airport is no longer an airport suitable and grand enough for the capital of the United States of America."
Both the Bermello Ajamil & Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects proposal, and the Grimshaw and Ferrovial design maintain the Saarinen building, with suggestions to repurpose the terminal into a lounge.
AECOM's proposal also suggests shifting the Saarinen building into a more commercially oriented use, turning it to "revenue‑generating uses rather than adapting it to functions it was never intended to serve".
The RFI also explicitly mentions Trump's Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again executive order, saying it is "consistent" with the order.
However, both the Grimshaw and Ferrovial, and Bermello Ajamil & Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects proposals are decidedly contemporary.
The DOT did not respond when approach for comment on this story, and the window for submissions for the RFI has closed.
The imagery is courtesy of DOT.
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