Recognised in History: LPL Construction Named Twice in Manchester Airport’s Iconic Chandelier Installation
There are moments that go beyond a completed contract. Moments where the work someone has done becomes part of something lasting. For LPL Construction Services and our own Janet Harrison, this is one of them.
Janet has recently been presented with a numbered tag and commemorative certificate recognising her personal contribution to the Manchester Airport Transformation Programme, and with it, a permanent place within one of the most remarkable art installations in the North of England.
Her tag number is 189, one of 482 individually numbered parachutes that make up Atmospheric Reflections of the North, now permanently on display in Terminal 2 Security East at Manchester Airport. But Janet is not the only LPL presence within the installation. LPL Construction Services as an organisation has also been awarded its own tag, number 382, in recognition of the company’s wider contribution to MAN-TP through the delivery of five UKBF office fit-outs and the HBS projects.
It means LPL Construction Services are represented twice within this installation: once through the individual and once as the company that made it possible.
The Story Behind the Installation
For decades, four iconic glass chandeliers hung in the original Terminal 1, greeting millions of passengers from 1962 until they were taken down in 2003. Rather than let them disappear, Manchester Airport worked with Denton-based artist Liam Hopkins of Lazerian and students from Manchester School of Architecture to reimagine them entirely, repurposing the original Murano glass droplets into 482 parachute-inspired forms stretching more than 85 metres across the terminal ceiling.
The design carries real meaning. The parachute form references the airport’s wartime history as a Parachute Regiment training ground. The colour transition from grey-blue to red-orange represents sunrise as passengers move towards departures. Each parachute carries an aluminium hexagon tag, a nod to the city’s industrial heritage, and replica commemorative tags have been produced in brass, similar in weight and significance to memorial coins issued at major historical milestones.
A QR code in the terminal links to a full dedication list, and a terminal map shows the exact location of each parachute within the installation.
Millions of passengers will walk beneath this for decades to come, with every contributor’s name recorded within it. Watch the drone footage to see the installation in full:
What This Recognition Means to LPL
Janet’s certificate and tag are a personal recognition of that contribution. But alongside her individual tag sits LPL Construction Services’s own. Tag number 382 is a separate acknowledgement of the scope and quality of work the company delivered across the UKBF offices and HBS projects as part of this transformational programme.
To be represented twice within this installation is something we are genuinely proud of. It reflects not just what Janet achieved personally, but what the wider LPL team delivered collectively over the course of a complex, demanding, and ultimately historic project. Millions of passengers will pass beneath Atmospheric Reflections of the North for decades to come.
Two of those 482 parachutes belong to LPL. One to the company. One to the person who helped make it happen on the ground.
