The Mother of All ‘Abandoned’ Airports (2015)

Back in 2010 I was learning German and visited Berlin for the first time with another friend whose German was as bad as mine. We downloaded this random app (in German) telling us about Berlin tourist attractions, and upon reading it we "understood" that Tempelhof was a tourist attraction and "frozen in time" and we should visit it.

We walked into the building looking for tickets for some sort of exposition, but there was no one inside - not even security. We genuinely believed it was a place open for guests, so we just walked straight in. We toured inside of the airport alone for about 40 minutes, through the hangars and corridors and up and down a couple of rooms and staircases. The most curious room we found was some sort of poorly lit restaurant that had tableware with eagles drawn on it, and a cute old bar which I suspect is what one would find in Germany during the Cold War. Most doors were unlocked one way, but would lock such that you couldn't walk back where you came from, and thus kept pushing us to go further and further in. The place is huge though, and we didn't see many of the things shown in the pictures in the posted link, not even the main hall. Finally a guard found us and politely escorted us out of the building. We figured the airport was closed because it was Sunday, and it actually took me a couple of years and other visits to Berlin to realize the building wasn't open for the public.

One of my greatest experiences of being lost in translation.

Every once in a while, you can visit Tempelhof. I have visited it some time ago and really enjoyed the main hall. It's in pristine condition, with the old signs and typography.

Tempelhofer Feld is also part of the Berlin experience, half way between a park and an open air festival, used simultaneously by picnickers, cyclists, skaters, gardeners, DJs, kite surfers, drone pilots and just about everyone else.

There have been talks of building on top of it, but I can't think of a better example of a public good worth preserving. It's one of the rare places where you are allowed to exist without spending a dime.

Tempelhof was also the stage of the Berlin Airlift [0], a fascinating moment of Berlin's history.

[0] https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/the-berlin-airlift

Fun fact, the airport was once the largest building in the world, and is still today in place 28 (source: Wikipedia) and the longest building in europe.

What is also missing in the article: Its massive underground site. During WW2, the airport was used to build combat airplanes. For parts supply, it has its own subway station (not in use today) and even a water power plant to run off grid.

Source: https://www.berliner-unterwelten.de/verein/forschungsthema-u... (in German)

Wow, I've always wanted to visit this airport, glad to read that they're not going to tear it down.

In 2016 Conan O'Brien went there, because the airport was being used to house refugees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j39oTM2DLGs . According to the German Wikipedia article of the airport, this use would only be limited for 3 years until the end of 2019, but there were also a lot of protests against it.

I remember walking through Tempelhof when their appeared to be a sort of cycling event on. It might have been a regular thing, but it was fairly incredible. A single massive continuous swarm of people of all ages looping the airfield, on bikes, trikes, recliners, even velomobile. There was a tandem towing a trailer with two kids in it. It was crazy.

Tempelhof is cool. I flew into Tempelhof on a USAF jet in 1981. Landing was 'interesting,' due to the short runway and crowded city around it. On final approach the pilots had to thread the needle between apartments on either side of the flight path. You could basically see into the apartments, which were at eye level. Plus there was a cemetery right underneath, perhaps as a convenience in the event of a mishap.

Reminds me of Ciudad Real International Airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_International_Airp...

"Operations at the site ran for three years until April 2012, when its previous management company filed for bankruptcy and went into receivership,[2] after the last flight operator, low-cost airline Vueling, withdrew its last route from the airport,[3] and it would remain closed for seven years until finally being reopened in September 2019."

Looking at it in google maps with the aerial view turned on, it looks like there is (or was, at time of photo) a bunch of modular housing units for temporary accommodations, the whole terminal and apron is still there, and there's a dog park. The dog park has lots of cute user submitted photos of dogs.

There's also a 'private university' named for Sigmund Freud. I was hoping that some of Berlin's famous graffiti artists might have drawn a visible from space phallus on the roof, but no such luck.

I am always fascinated by these web sites that document the "abandoned" past (though clearly this airport has not been abandoned at all). Here is another one I like: http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/. There used to be a website that kept track of abandoned ski areas, but I cannot find it. Sadly, it looks like the website itself has been abandoned.

When visiting Berlin a few summers ago, I happened to be staying in Neukölln and decided it'd be fun to do one of my daily runs around the airfield. There's a funny thing about airports that I quickly realized: they have no trees and thusly no shade. They're also really big.

I won't say I particularly enjoyed the run but it was cool to be able to do it and experience a very unique and historic outdoor space in a big city.

Gorgeous photography in that article. Great read. I love HN for posts like this.

Maybe I am a bit to critical or most people in Berlin central do not know this, but Tempelhof isn't even the mother of 'abandoned' airports in Berlin. That would be Johannisthal. Sure, it's even more abandoned so you barely see the remains of the runways and so on. But well, these days the parks are full enough anyways :)

Arriving to Templehof felt like a dystopian experience. A vacant Facistic styled airport and a public park in the size of a neighbourhood. As someone coming from a dense area urban area it was like nothing else. If you consider visiting keep in mind it’s a long ride

I live in Berlin. This place is entirely Giant. It’s a great place to go and hangout in the summer. Two large dog off leash areas and a large outer ring and tons of places to ride cycles and things.

There’s also a few restaurants to eat at before you go exploring.

In South Korea I visited Dorasan station that is on the train line between South and North Korea. That train line has only been used a few times, for obvious reasons. At the moment I visited Dorasan. it was not really used. So there was this big modern station that was almost completely empty.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorasan_station

I know the original plan was that they were going to shut down Tegel, Tempelhof, and Schönefeld and replace them all with BER.

My understanding is that now BER has finally been finished, Schönefeld has been turned into a terminal + runway of BER, and Tegel has recently been shut down. If so, what's going to happen to the Tegel buildings and airfield space now?

Also what happened to the other aiports in Berlin like Tegel and Sconefeld since Brandenberg replaced them. The major delay in completing Brandenberg is also surprising to an outsider.

I took a guided tour of the main Tempelhof airport building back in 2015. Some highlights:

* The main hall's ceiling was originally significantly higher, making a very imposing space. After the war, the Americans insisted a false ceiling was put in to make the hall less impressive. The room was damaged during the war by fire and all this damage remains above the false ceiling and is accessible. The tour actually took us up there.

* Construction of the airport had to halt during the war and some areas were hastily completed. We were shown areas where the attractive stone facade had fallen away and there was rubble stuck together by mortar behind.

* Hitler had a private terminal with a private elevator leading down to the boarding area

* There are bomb shelters with original uplifting drawings on the wall. https://twitter.com/prchovanec/status/1177225021162479616/ph...

* There's a full size basketball court from the american air base that was once there

I live in Berlin, Templehof is awesome. Highly recommend for anyone visiting.

TL;DR the buildings are mostly used, mostly by government agencies and the green space is mostly a public access park.