Originally published July 2022.
Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I moved to the city for what proved an intense and life-changing experience. Last week I travelled there for the first time since Covid, starting and ending in the recently opened BER airport, the Great White Elephant of our age. In the 30 years since 1992, what I thought of as ‘the blank page’ of Berlin’s built environment has been reshaped by major infrastructure, such as the impressive Hauptbahnhof completed in 2006. The last big piece of that post-Cold War transformation was the new BER airport, which was already being planned in the early 90s. Ultimately, it took so long to become operational that Berlin is now on the edge of a second Cold War with Russia.
BER’s construction started in 2006 and ended in 2012. After 100 months of delay caused by fire regulations and political incompetence, it finally opened in November 2020. The unfortunate airport thus became operational in a Covid winter when there were hardly any passengers to serve. In a rigorous country which values punctuality, BER became a national disgrace, costing taxpayers over €6bn. Even a Brandenburg village had been uprooted to create 360,000sqm of unused buildings.
“In the gleaming ghost station under the terminal, trains stopped but without opening their doors”
In researching my book about Berlin* in 2016, I explored the then-empty airport which had already stood still for four years.In the gleaming ghost station under the terminal, trains stopped but without opening their doors. It felt uniquely weird, like the set of a sci-fi disaster movie. The unforeseen irony was that Coronavirus would freeze all Europe’s airports four years later. The Berlin airport sci-fi movie would have a bigger sequel.
