Last days of Berlin’s Tegel Airport celebrated in new photo book
Photographer Andreas Gehrke celebrates Tegel Airport and creates an intimate portrait of the place where the passengers have departed forever
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

A new architecture book on Tegel Airport celebrates the last days of the seminal German transport hub. Over the past few decades, Berlin’s airports have been in flux as the shifting and psychological borders of the Cold War came down and radically changed who needed to fly from where. For decades during the Cold War, East Berlin was served by Schönefeld Airport, while West Berlin relied on c and Tegel. The latter had its origins in the 1948 Berlin Airlift, when it was quickly established to bolster the city’s cargo capacity in the face of a Soviet blockade.
Revisiting Berlin’s Tegel Airport
Tegel lasted right into the modern era, becoming the city’s primary airport as Tempelhof closed and Schönefeld was folded into the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport, nearly three decades in the making. Tegel itself is now also closed, and for this new photographic architectural monograph, Andreas Gehrke spent over a year making frequent visits to the vast site as operations gradually wound down and the site closed after the last commercial flight on 8 November 2020.
The German photographer’s images show the empty airport to be deeply redolent of a particular era in air travel, before terminals transformed into luxury malls, with terraces of lounges and every conceivable concession. By modern standards, Tegel was ultra-compact, opening with a central hexagonal hub and control tower in 1974. Just five miles from the city centre, the internal distances were gentle strolls compared to the endurance hikes of modern multi-terminal hubs.
Gehrke shows the listed main buildings, which will survive the site’s transition into a new business and science park, as well as the forlorn sights of frozen departure boards and superfluous specialist equipment and infrastructure.
The handsome volume is limited to 600 copies and is also available in a slipcased edition.
Flughafen Berlin-Tegel, Andreas Gehrke, €55, Drittel Books, DrittelBooks.com (opens in new tab)
AndreasGehrke.de (opens in new tab)
Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.
-
Photo book explores the messy, magical mundanity of new motherhood
‘Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back’ by photographer Andi Galdi Vinko explores new motherhood in all its messy, beautiful reality
By Hannah Silver • Published
-
Rimowa violin case with Gewa strikes the right note
This new Rimowa violin case created in collaboration with Gewa is made of hard-wearing grooved aluminium
By Hannah Silver • Published
-
Nordic Knots opens Stockholm showroom in a former cinema
New Nordic Knots Stockholm showroom makes the most of the dramatic interiors of the early-20th-century Eriksbergsteatern
By Pei-Ru Keh • Published
-
Arthur Casas book explores the Brazilian architect’s elegant modernism
Arthur Casas’ book chronicles the houses, hotels and retail spaces the Brazilian architect has shaped around the world
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
‘Brutalist Paris’ is a book that lays bare the legacy of the city’s concrete architecture
Architectural cartographer Blue Crow Media launches ‘Brutalist Paris’, its first book, a photographic study of the French capital’s surviving brutalist treasures and concrete impasses
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
‘Ole Scheeren: Spaces of Life’ celebrates ‘form follows fiction’ in architecture
‘Ole Scheeren: Spaces of Life’, a comprehensive look into the work of the German architect, opens at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Aachen’s Center for Advanced Mobility is a celebration of technical innovation
Studio MDA's Center for Advanced Mobility in Aachen, Germany celebrates technical innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration
By Pei-Ru Keh • Last updated
-
Playfully transparent roof defines German Glass House escape
The Glass House by Sigurd Larsen, set amid nature outside Berlin, is an unconventional country home with a distinctive transparent roof
By Ellie Stathaki • Last updated
-
The iconic BMW HQ in Munich celebrates its half century
Karl Schwanzer designed a corporate icon for BMW. Now 50 years old, the company’s Munich HQ is still going strong
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated
-
Sustainability, art and German farmhouse architecture meet at Gutshof Güldenhof
Germany's Gutshof Güldenhof is a farming complex transformed into a hub for arts, sustainability and social life, courtesy of Heim Balp Architekten and artist Danh Vo
By Ellie Stathaki • Last updated
-
A German house appears as a monolithic stone structure
A sculptural villa in the northern German town of Bielefeld is the latest offering by Titus Bernhard Architects
By Jonathan Bell • Last updated