Blueprint for the future: the airports Berlin-Tegel and BerlinBrandenburg by the architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners(gmp)

1914 –2014: the period of world history which the 2014 ArchitectureBiennale revolves around is the century in which the modern worldhas come about, a technological and globalised world. A central elementin this development: the dream of flying has become a reality, foreverybody. In 1914 there were no airports, only grass strips for startingand landing, and hangars. Today, one hundred years later, thereare complex mega-structures such as the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport(BER), built for millions of visitors.However, 50 years earlier, pretty much exactly in between ’14 and ’14,an architectural project in Berlin had already come into being whichlooked at the future then and may still do so today. It is worthwhiletravelling back to the year 1965 and telling the tale of the concept andcreation of Berlin-Tegel Airport (TXL). The tale’s moral: remember the– positive! – future-oriented origins of globalised architecture in orderto find the right responses to its – often negative! – repercussions.

TXL – the concept In 1965, three freshly graduated qualified architects around the ageof 30, Meinhard von Gerkan, Volkwin Marg and Klaus Nickels, presenteda radical airport concept which anticipated many conditionsof globalised capitalism and its architecture. The “airport of short distances”in Berlin-Tegel systematically incorporated the principles ofefficiency, optimisation and functionality, being way ahead of its time.As a model-type building, its uniqueness paradoxically consisted in its“replicability” – that is to say its potential for global replication. Arguably,Tegel was one of the first large “global” transport buildings in acontemporary sense – the blueprint for what in 1965 was the future.

This future included the promise of global mobility – at least withinthe boundaries permitted by the Cold War. But since 11 September2001 at the latest, airports are also being designed as places of control,of surveillance and of lack of freedom and, first and foremost,they are being designed as consumer temples in deference to the triumphalprocession of globally exploding capitalism. The utopian ideaof airports as architectural freedom machines has lost its innocence.Today, these global shopping malls with departure gates are rather indicativeof the absence of freedom: these super-efficient commercialtraps sabotage the innocent idea of short, free routes more effectivelythan any security mantrap in use today. Architecturally speaking, thismeans the irretrievable loss of one of the basic principles of Tegel: theprinciple of decentralisation. Within the airport building passengerswere guided along the most direct route from the entrance via thecheck-in to the departure gate. The distance they had to walk wasless than 50 metres.The Tegel design reminds us that architecture can and should incorporatea fresh idea of “globalisation”. Today, Tegel Airport once againhas a “futuristic” feel, because it reminds us of the future. It also remindsus of the dialectic momentum that is inherent in socio-economicprogress. The radical concept of Berlin-Tegel helped to realise thedream of freedom through mobility – and thereby also contributed tothe licence to abuse this idea. As a pioneer of an optimised, super-efficient transport organisation, the airport may well be one of the originsof what today is considered the malaise of globalised architecture.However, inasmuch as it completely eschewed the idea of maximisingconsumption – which in global capitalism is inseparably linked withmaximising efficiency! – it appears, from a contemporary perspective,almost as an anti-capitalist architectural utopia.

TXL – conditions of its creation Against all odds, Meinhard von Gerkan, Volkwin Marg and Klaus Nickelswon the competition for Berlin-Tegel Airport in 1965. The threeinexperienced architects were just starting their careers; there was nosuch thing as a “proper” architectural practice yet.And yet these very circumstances were the breeding ground of a workthat took into account the unity of the whole and its parts in such away as to create a paradigm. For the young architects were at libertyto create a comprehensive design. They not only devised a conceptfor the airport. They also designed its interior, its guide system, thesignage, furniture, floors. With this comprehensive design, in whicheven the smallest detail had a clear relationship to the overall concept,the three young architects were far ahead of their time.

It must be said, however, that “their time” was a time of architecturalfreedom which, from today’s perspective, can only be called utopian.Today, as architectural challenges have become more complexand important than ever before, the freedom of young architects andothers involved in the process has become incredibly restricted owingto numerous architectural policy and commercial constraints.In that respect not only the design itself appears utopian from today’sperspective but also the conditions that led to its development.Merely remembering a utopia is not enough to make it possible. But itensures that the principles underlying the ideal are not forgotten. Principlesthat must always stay valid, however hard it becomes to reachthe ideal.

Past forward: TXL+ The ideal of a completely sustainable energy-plus city is hard to reach.Yet the principles according to which such a city must be built havebeen around for quite some time. Reducing a design to its essentialsrequires reducing one’s thinking to what is essential. In keeping withthe tradition of “the airport of the future”, gmp has presented plans forTXL’s re-utilisation. They are called “TXL+” and they aim at developingjust such an energy-plus city on the Tegel premises.Just like the 50-year-old airport concept, TXL+ focuses radically onthe basic principle of efficiency: it is the DNA of the city itself which– on the basis of its density and functional flexibility – is to produceways of living which structurally lead to the optimised use of energy.

BER – conditions of its creation In 2014, too, the principles of efficiency, optimisation and functionalitystill dominate the design of an airport. But compared to 1965 achange in paradigm has taken place. Efficiency is no longer focusedon helping passengers reach their plane or disembark from it alongthe most direct route. Today, optimisation is all about security andconsumerism. That is why the architect is faced with completely newcomplex challenges. The decentralised design has become obsolete,the routes that people use within the structure have to be centralisedand arranged in a linear layout. The airport has become an equallymultifunctional and contradictory structure: it is supposed to bea place of transition while also inviting passengers to dwell for thepurpose of consumption.Today, design freedom is a dance in chains which is made even moreonerous by the jungle of bureaucratic rules and regulations. It hasbecome almost impossible for a single architectural firm to design ascomprehensively as in 1965. The technical specifications and possibilitiesof modern building structures are so highly developed thatmore and more specialists have to be involved. It would be impossibleto build Tegel under today’s conditions. But the very same architecturalway of thinking that made TXL possible makes BER Europe’smost modern airport. The new airport incorporates the memory of theold one. To be future-oriented means remembering the future.

BER – the concept The ideal of short distances will not be abandoned. BER is an airportof short distances, too. It is true that the notion of “shortness” has undergonedrastic changes in the last 50 years. Routes can no longer bearranged in a decentralised layout but they must still be kept as shortand direct as possible. BER addresses this problem with the help ofanother principle that had already been implemented in Tegel: themodular character of the design, the grid – which provides a rhythmto the structure and, at the same time, makes it possible for the airportto be adapted to continually on-going changes. BER is more an ongoingprocess than a finite piece of real estate.What has not changed since 1965 is the fact that the strict adherenceto a design grid allows for complexity on all functional and architecturallevels within the whole composition. The design incorporates thefuture without knowing the future.

TXL – the concept The briefing for the Berlin Tegel Airport ideas competition in 1965 stipulateda design that “allows for stepped enlargement of the airport andlater use of the development for other purposes”. To this end, Meinhardvon Gerkan, Volkwin Marg and Klaus Nickels developed a geometricmodular principle. It is a hexagonal grid of equilateral triangleswith edge lengths of ten metres. This forms the basis for the design ofall structures of the drive-in airport – including the roads, bridges andrunways. Likewise, all construction elements such as ceilings, floors,staircases and fixtures were developed with the same geometric pattern,which almost gives the development its own corporate design.The airport ensemble comprises the handling building, the centralbuilding, the control tower, the access road, the multi-storey car parkand technical services installations. All these buildings are alignedalong the axes of the equilateral triangle grid, which makes extensionspossible without limitation to functionality.

The hexagonal terminal was arranged over two floors with an atriumand roof terrace, and served the decentralised direct handling of passengersand aeroplanes, giving rise to the term “airport of short distances”.The idea of the drive-in airport was systematically appliedso that it became possible to drive into the interior of the terminal,directly to one’s respective check-in area. This meant that arrivalat the airport and entering the plane was nearly one and the same thing. There was not even 50 metres between the two. There were atotal of 14 positions where aeroplanes could be brought directly to thebuilding in nose-in position, enabling passengers to board or alight.Departure and arrival are on the same level. The basic design featurewas selected to be fair-faced concrete. This rather technical/rationalimage of the building is contrasted by playful image elements and anexpressive colour concept.The big advantages of a terminal with a decentralised handling facility(uncomplicated transfers, quick orientation, short distances) todaycan no longer be used in the original manner, but the spatial organisationis still a dominant pattern in the building to this day.

The airport Berlin Brandenburg The design for the Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) was intended tocreate a functional and organisational unit encompassing all elementsof a modern airport.The terminal with the pier buildings extending on three sides is at thehead of the facility. Colonnades form the transition between architectureand landscape, buildings and open space. The terminal issubdivided into two levels. The departure lounge with its generous,light-flooded design forms the main level which is roofed over by a filigreeconstruction in steel and glass. The U-shaped layout of the piersallows for a maximum number of plane positions near the building. Itis also possible to extend the north and south piers. The terminal, thepiers and Airport City with its offices and hotels are located betweenthe two existing parallel take-off and landing runways laid out fromeast to west in the main wind direction. This is also the symmetricalaxis of the airport with the existing railway line and road access to theentire airport facility. Along this axis lies the central entrance area – themain hall.The centralised passenger handling function meets the requirementsof state-of-the-art airport design.

All elements – including the passenger terminal, Airport City, the waitingareas to the west and the service and cargo areas to the east– are laid out within the axial arrangement and form an architecturalas well as a functional unit. By concentrating all routes and means oftransport at one point, i.e. the underground railway station directly under the terminal building, the ground-level road access from the citymotorway in the east and finally the air traffic, the prerequisites are inplace for an airport with a maximum of ‘interchangeability’ betweentransport modes within a single building and the shortest routes comparedwith other European airports.Other important prerequisites were the option to extend the airportand compatibility with future developments in construction. For thispurpose, a horizontal grid of 6.25 m was developed which divides thebuilding into a system of squares. The grid pattern of the terminal correspondsto seven times this basic grid dimension, while all fitting-outdetails are based on one tenth of that dimension. This grid relationshipconveys a measure of human scale, linking the large elements of theairport with details such as the size of the natural stone floor tiles.