A magic mountain for Berlin
Tempelhof Airport, in central Berlin, was conceived by the Nazis as a symbol of imperial might -- the entry point to the heart of the Third Reich. Later, the airport acquired a different kind of renown, as a destination for American pilots during the Berlin airlift. Unlike other Nazi monuments, it escaped the taint of its origins: The architect Norman Foster has called Tempelhof "the mother of all modern airports." Since October, however, the facility has been shuttered and Germany is trying to figure out what to do with the site. This month, the city revealed some of the suggestions from architects and urban planners.
Most were banal, involving office towers and housing complexes -- the specter of which sent the German architect Jakob Tigges in an entirely different direction. Tigges cannot be accused of thinking conventionally. Or small: He proposes adding a 3,000-foot mountain to the core of the site, with the airport's famous curved terminal (among the largest structures in the world) providing a partial perimeter. His illustrations show a lush, cloud-ringed peak, complete with mountain goats.
Described in the German press as a "Magic Mountain," a la Thomas Mann, the proposal is, by Tigges's own admission, pure preservationist provocation. In the words of Spiegel Online, the architect views it as "a mythical mountain to fire imaginations until an appropriately grand solution is found."
