Paul Andreu (1938–2018) was a French architect and engineer, known for airports around the world and for large cultural buildings in China. Born in Gironde, he studied at the École Polytechnique and the École des Ponts, then architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts, graduating in 1968. From 1967 he led the planning and building of Charles de Gaulle Airport for Paris, and his airports range from Shanghai Pudong to Cairo. In 2004 part of his Terminal 2E at Charles de Gaulle, opened in 2003, collapsed and killed four people; an inquiry cited technical causes and a lack of safety margins in the design, while Andreu blamed poor execution by the builders.
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Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 1 (1974), the airport's first terminal, is a circular building, unlike the linear terminals that followed. The Shanghai Oriental Art Center (2005) groups five domed halls like the petals of a butterfly orchid seen from above. The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing (2007), nicknamed "the boiled egg", sets its theatres inside an ellipsoidal shell of more than 18,000 titanium plates and glass, set in an artificial lake.
Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 11974 · Roissy-en-France
National Centre for the Performing Arts2007 · Beijing
Osaka Maritime Museum2000 · Osaka
Shanghai Oriental Art Center2005 · Shanghai