Kansai International Airport sits on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, about 24 miles (38 km) from Osaka Station. Renzo Piano and Noriaki Okabe designed Terminal 1. The New Kansai International Airport Company owns it, and Kansai Airports has operated it since April 1, 2016. Construction began in 1987, and it opened on September 4, 1994. It operates 24 hours a day.
Terminal 1 is a single four-story building about 1.1 miles (1.7 km) long, with an airfoil-shaped roof that circulates air. Adjustable columns compensate for the island's sinking, which reached 27 feet (8.2 m) by 1999. The sea wall uses rock and 48,000 tetrapods. The article puts total cost near $20 billion.
The terminal withstood the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake. Typhoon Jebi flooded the island in September 2018. The American Society of Civil Engineers named it a Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium in 2001.
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