Why Berlin's Tegel Airport was so innovative

Tegel Airport has been close to the Berliners' heartright from the start. Shortly after the Soviet blockade of West Berlin in 1948, the French occupying troops built an airfield in the north-western part of the city to support the Allies in the Berlin Airlift. The temporary solution remained, providing an important hub allowing West Berliners to leave the city. This became all the more necessary when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961.

With the growing number of passengers and flights, Tegel was expanded.

The construction of the new main building for the Berlin Tegel "Otto Lilienthal" Airport began in 1970. At the topping out ceremony, all guests were given hexagonal glasses — a reference to the unusual shape of the main terminal building, which opened on November 1, 1974. The successful concept of an airport without a central transit zone allowed Gerkan, Marg & Partners (gmp) to break through on an international level.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, air traffic to Berlin and Tegel increased again massively, and a new, larger airport was necessary. While Tegel was set to close in 2012, the completion of the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) was infamously delayed several times.

In 2019, 24 million passengers traveled through Berlin-Tegel Airport, which was originally planned for some two million passengers a year.

On October 31, 2020, the new "Willy Brandt" BER airport finally opened after all. After Tegel closes on November 8, only helicopters of the German armed forces will keep flying from the military part of the airfield, until probably 2029.

Deutsche Welle interviewed the Tegel architects, Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg, in June 2020.

DW: How do you feel about Berlin Tegel Airport finally closing on November 8?

Volkwin Marg: It's a farewell that we've been expecting for a long time, as the new Berlin airport was supposed to be ready in 2012. Still it's a farewell tainted with a bit of sadness. Tegel was a witness of a time when infrastructures aimed to serve the people.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Tegel Airport had already been bursting at the seams for a long time. Nevertheless, it was valued and loved by passengers: You could quickly reach the baggage carousel or head straight to the exit after getting off the plane, and from there it was only a short-distance walk to the taxi stand or the bus stop. Why didn't your concept of short distances in airports catch on elsewhere afterwards?

Meinhard von Gerkan: The top priority for us was to build an airport with short distances, a clear orientation, and a quick connection to the city of Berlin and all facilities within the airport. The passenger was the criterion for a good functioning of the airport.

Nowadays almost every new airport is a shopping center, with T-shirts, cocktail bars and liquor stores. The planes happen to be somewhere there too. It's just the opposite of what we were aiming for. A shopping center with airplane connections is primarily unpleasant for passengers.

Volkwin Marg: But you can live with that in some way. Now on top of that, there is also increasing terrorism and security problems. Almost all airports in the world have controls, barriers, baggage checks and other lengthy security measures in place, so the way from the entrance of the airport to the plane seat has become, so to speak, a path of suffering that every passenger must endure.

These two phenomena explain why our airport concept is no longer suitable today. Tegel is an airport with decentralized check-ins, which means that you could go directly to your departure counter within the ring, and that's also where you checked in. Thirty meters further you went straight onto the plane. Of course, this decentralization means that control personnel must be multiplied, as you need staff at every entrance point.

The construction of the Tegel airport building, with its triangular and hexagonal shape, made the gmp architect office famous. You've since designed numerous renowned construction projects in Germany and abroad. Why does Tegel remain so close to your heart?

Volkwin Marg: It was absolutely sensational that we got the commission back then! Our architecture office didn't even exist. There were two of us. Such an office wouldn't even be invited to take part in such a competition today.

Tegel is, so to speak, our firstborn of the major projects. And anything you do on a large scale for the first time your in life remains a strong memory. Even if you're in your mid-80s.

We were 20 at the time, and of course we look back on it with a bit of nostalgia, but also with some degree of pride, because how many other architects have seen their buildings listed as monuments during their lifetime? We are thrilled that this happened to Tegel. The Senate didn't decide this just for fun, but rather because they noticed that Berliners think it's good. And the fact that the airport was also celebrated at the time we designed it and that it was seen as the future of flying also boosted our reputation worldwide, of course, and that helped us expand our activities abroad to a large extent.

You've already mentioned the changed requirements for the construction and architecture of airports. What would you plan differently if you were to build an airport in an international metropolis today?

Meinhard von Gerkan: Our society changed when markets were totally liberalized. Gas stations no longer just sell gasoline, they sell everything. The same thing happened to train stations. In the past you could only buy food for your trip and newspapers there. Airports used to have their costs covered by passengers' tickets. And an airport was seen as a public facility at the time, just like a train station.

Airports today don't dare raise their landing fees, knowing that their international competitors' income is based on retail space. Sometimes that makes up 50 to 60% of their revenues.

We built Tegel back then for two million passengers, with an eye on doubling that to five million. Today we know that this is no longer a reality. In other words, a future airport must be designed as a process for growth, which gives you a completely different pattern.

The second thing is that if we accept that terrorists and criminals carry out their attacks in precisely such places, there is no way around centralized security. Tegel's decentralized concept no longer works under those circumstances.

The coronavirus crisis will certainly change things in terms of security, too. And third, if our society does not change and allows consumption everywhere, even in places where there is no city at all — in contrast to our European city centers with all their liveliness — then we will not be able to prevent retail at the airport.

If it were up to you to decide, what would you do with the old building after Tegel airport closes?

Volkwin Marg: It is very important to us that this building remains public, for instance as a school, or research facilities, for exhibitions and many other events for the people of Berlin. The city of Berlin will decide in the near future.

The challenge now is that the use envisaged here cannot be airport-related, but something the building was never designed for. This change has to be made so skillfully that this facility's identity does not become unrecognizable, which is a true conflict of objectives. We are very keen on finding a good solution.

You two have known each other for a very long time, and you still work together. How did you do it?

Volkwin Marg: Our firm, our group of architects has been in existence for over 55 years. We met as students more than 60 years ago. Since then, we have continuously launched projects. We also had losses, but we never lamented. Not even about the new airport that we were also involved in at the beginning.

Meinhard von Gerkan: From day one, we have shared an office. Just occasionally, we'd be working in different places. We also share a workspace in several of our offices in China because it's so practical — you hear everything you don't want to know.

 

Interview: Gönna Ketels/Klaudia Prevezanos, translated by Dagmar Breitenbach and Elizabeth Grenier