Flughafen Berlin Tegel – Andreas Gehrke

On 8 November 2020 the last commercial aircraft departed from Berlin Tegel Airport. It left an emptiness in its wake; but also a utopian space in which the idea, the architecture and the history of the site continue to resonate. In this respect, Berlin Tegel was unlike the major international hubs in Shanghai, Denver, London and Frankfurt am Main which, with their never-ending agglo-merations of departure lounges, check-in counters, retractable barriers, escalators and shopping facilities, hardly differ from one another. As an airport, it wasn’t merely a transit zone of the globalised era; it was also a place with a particular social and historical significance. Andreas Gehrke visited the site between 2020 and 2021, photographing the once crowded main terminal, the decommissioned airfield and the abandoned auxiliary buildings. His images show a juxtaposition of vision and stagnation, and how these states eventually became reality for Berlin Tegel.