Program In the early 1990s the Chinese authorities decided to turn the Pudong district of Shanghai into a model metropolis for the 21st century. Lying across the Huangpu River from old Shanghai, Pudong has morphed during the past decade from an area of farms and villages into an explosion of skyscrapers, convention centers, shopping and entertainment districts, and one of the widest boulevards in the world.

To serve the new Pudong, the government decided to give it an international airport all its own, the second in the Shanghai area. After a design competition in 1996, Paul Andreu of Aeroports de Paris (ADP) was awarded the commission.

Due to the pace of development in China, the Shanghai-Pudong airport had to be built in record time, moving from initial design in the fall of 1996 to opening at the end of 1999. The first phase required 28 gates in the terminal and 11 remote gates and needed to handle 20 million passengers a year.

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Design solution To speed the building process, ADP used a simple structural system for the project's signature roofs and began foundation work even as the superstructure was in the final design stages. Andreu approached the huge site by abstracting it into a geometric arrangement of water and landscape. Curving access roads and a right-of-way for a future rail line cut across a broad, rectilinear reflecting pond, while the terminal building sits within a great square of trees and gardens.

Andreu broke down the 2.27 million-square-foot terminal into four components -- a drop-off platform, a departure hall, a retail area, and a gate concourse -- and gave each its own curving roof. Angled curtain walls and radiating vertical mullions give the building a sense of upward thrust, but a heavy concrete plinth keeps it earthbound.Inside the terminal, skylights illuminate hundreds of vertical roof-support members; when illuminated at night, these verticals resemble ''a shower of comets falling from the sky,'' says the architect.

As is typical of airports today, arriving and departing passengers are segregated vertically and move from one curved-roof zone to another. Located on the upper level are the departure hall and check-in counters, shops and restaurants, security checkpoint, and boarding lounges. Arrival areas, immigration and customs checkpoints, and baggage-claim facilities are located below. Glazed bridges connect the main portion of the terminal with the 4,600-foot-long concourse.

The present terminal is the first of four such complexes planned for the airport, each ''module'' designed to accommodate an additional 15 to 20 million passengers annually. The next phase will involve construction of a ''mirror'' complex opposite the present terminal; future plans call for a second pair of complexes further along the airport's central axis. When all construction is completed, the airport will be able to handle more than 70 million passengers a year.

Structure/materials Andreu used ''contrasting but complementary elements'' -- light steel roofs and a heavy concrete base -- to allude to the earth and the sky. The project's most identifying elements are its roofs, which employ a series of prestressed parabolic trusses free of diagonal members and supported at each end by columns. The upper chord of the trusses is in compression, while the lower chord -- a cable -- is in tension. Where the roof is exposed to wind (as in the vehicle drop-off area) a series of uplift stays have been added for additional rigidity.

Commentary Shanghai-Pudong International Airport was one of a number of major capital projects that opened on October 1, 1999, marking the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest and most technologically advanced airport on the Chinese mainland, and proof that architectural design and construction there has come a long way in the past decade.

The terminal's clean and simple logic makes getting about effortless, something jet-lagged globe-trotters will particularly appreciate. Because the terminal is spacious and flushed with natural light, even a long layover here can be a positive experience.

Architectural quality aside, it is not yet clear how successful Shanghai-Pudong Airport will be. Competi- tion with Hongqiao Airport, on the city's west side, is inevitable. Air-passenger traffic in Shanghai has been growing at more than 20 percent a year, but whether this will be enough to support two major hubs remains to be seen. The Pudong airport is fairly remote, even from Pudong's center (which, ironically, is more quickly reached from the old airport). The new airport's planners have had a difficult time convincing investors that Shanghai's center of gravity has shifted to the east side of the Huangpu River. For most people, Shanghai remains a city with a split personality, each with its own ambitions and now its own airport as well.

Thomas Campanella