THE LAST DAYS OF TXL
This is my homage to the formerly best airport in the world. I am sad that I will never fly out from there again. Yes, it has been run down and too small for Berlin for the past several years. It was supposed to close in 2012 but the new BER only opened in November 2020, so the older airport just fell by the wayside. Why did I love Tegel? It’s history is already fascinating - the architects (Gerkan & Marg) who won the building competition were two talented young guys straight out of college and their thinking was very much outside of the box. Every gate (terminal A) had his own security check (back when you could smoke in an aircraft) and the taxis would drop you off right in front of it - decentralized check-in in a hexagon shaped building. This made it a very fast airport. The architects' original plans had a much larger construction in mind, among the parts that were never built were terminals and a subway stop. Later build additions were not part of the original drawings. Still, many well-designed elements today show it`s charm and character and it remains a monument. Bye Bye TXL, Berlin is missing you already!
All images in this gallery are analog medium format and taken in the last week of October 2020 (except the ones out of the airplane).
