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
-
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi almost become lovers in Luca Guadagnino’s Chanel No.5 campaign: watch the filmMargot Robbie and Jacob Elordi front the new Chanel No.5 campaign in a film directed by Luca Guadagnino and soundtracked by Daft Punk
-
Art Basel returns to Paris: here is everything to see and doArt Basel Paris 2024 (18 - 20 October 2024) returns, opening at the newly renovated Grand Palais
-
PAD London’s 16th edition is a blisteringly optimistic case for human achievementAt PAD London, collectible design is more than rarefied furniture; it is a compelling case for the uplifting power of craftsmanship at the dawn of the AI revolution
-
A walk through Potsdamer Platz: Europe’s biggest construction site 30 years onIn 2024, Potsdamer Platz celebrates its 30th anniversary and Jonathan Glancey reflects upon the famous postmodernist development in Berlin, seen here through the lens of photographer Rory Gardiner
-
The Lake House is a tree-inspired retreat making the most of Berlin’s natureThe Lake House by Sigurd Larsen is a nature-inspired retreat in west Berlin, surrounded by trees and drawing on their timber nature
-
'Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces' captured in new monograph like no book before'The Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces' chronicles hundreds of iconic structures from this golden age of architectural expression
-
Dive into these new architecture books: Summer 2024's readingThe Wallpaper* guide to the new architecture books for Summer 2024 - from meaty monographs to themed explorations and lots of immersive visuals
-
'Kiosk: The Last Modernist Booths' book chronicles a little-known area of Eastern Bloc architectureZupagrafika brings Kiosk design, a forgotten slice of socialist architecture history, to life with this collection of modular, modernist booths
-
‘Brutalist Plants’ is a new monograph capturing the best of eco-brutalism'Brutalist Plants,' the new book by Olivia Broome, captures concrete architecture engulfed with nature
-
California houses: the allure of their progressive, expressive architectureMichael Webb’s new book, ‘California Houses: Creativity in Context’, assembles 36 contemporary homes that showcase the state’s reputation as a haven for progressive residential design
-
All hail the power of concrete architecture‘Concrete Architecture’ surveys more than a century’s worth of the world’s most influential buildings using the material, from brutalist memorials to sculptural apartment blocks
