In his eyes, light is the heavens, is flying, but also landscape, and above all a synonym for gaiety, which does not desert his terminal even in the gloomiest of weathers, Hans-Busso von Busse is quoted as saying in the catalog for the "WorldAirports" exhibition in Frankfurt. Like most of his colleagues, the architect of Munich Airport opts for an architectural lightness of being when building state-of-the-art major airports. Manuel Cuadra adopts this approach in the German Architectural Museum's exhibition of the world's airports, and in designing the main showroom has incorporated a flooring which ever since its installation at Frankfurt Airport has been irrevocably known as the airport flooring par excellence: the norament® pastille-type rubber flooring from Freudenberg Bausysteme KG , Weinheim.

Through a narrow, light-filled corridor, the visitor is gently guided into the Garden Hall of the German Architectural Museum on the river banks in Frankfurt. Anyone familiar with it in its original condition will be astonished by a fresh and undreamed-of dimension of lucidity: the norament® pastille-type flooring in the same hue as the ceiling and walls lends the room a new aura of bright spaciousness. The exhibition panels, most of them suspended from the ceiling, leave the floor free - creating space not dissimilar to vast halls in the world's airports. Here the floor has become a crucial element in the overall design effect.

The light entering from the center courtyard and the skylights at the side casts bizarre shadows on the pale floor, connoting a delicate carpeting of clouds seen from a high-flying aircraft. "Anticipating the flight experience" - this, too, is a goal many architects set themselves when planning their airports.

Large-scale photos of spectacular roof constructions, ingenious details and aerial views are displayed on the exhibition panels, graceful despite their size. Selected models in the predominant pale hue and discreet video terminals leave visitors space for their own dreams of flying.

In videos recorded specifically for the exhibition, the architects of the airports presented explain the thinking behind their designs. But design is one thing, functionality's another. Modern-day major airports are nowadays a country's visiting cards, and thus gigantic architectural jobs. At the same time, they are towns unique of their kind, complex technical "machines" with a multiplicity of functions. Originally in the public sector, they have meanwhile become autonomous enterprises, and as such have to survive and prosper on the market by the excellence of their services. Rubber floorings from the world's market leader Freudenberg Bausysteme KG are at many points the optimum floorcovering here. Besides their extreme longevity, demonstrated at Frankfurt Airport, for example, under the toughest of traffic conditions for more than 30 years, the broad product range of norament® and noraplan® rubber floorings offers a multitude of colors and designs with both profiled and smooth surfaces. It provides crucial support in creating the design concepts for complex large-scale projects like airports. All around the globe, top-ranking architects repeatedly opt for nora® floorcoverings.

nora® floorcoverings are proving their worth in more than 150 airports all over the world, such as Munich, Kuala Lumpur, Osaka and Shanghai/Pudong.

The "World's Airports" exhibition can be viewed at the German Architectural Museum in Frankfurt until 22 September. For further information, please consult: www.worldairports.de