It’s never easy to ask someone to give back a gift. Last year, politicians asked Berliners to do exactly that with Tempelhof, the former airport turned much loved communal area.

Famous as the lifeline for West Berlin during the cold war, Tempelhof’s airfield had become the German capital’s biggest park. Since it was turned over to the public in May 2010, the site has been immensely popular with families, joggers, rollerbladers, kite-flyers, wind-karters, urban gardeners, yoga enthusiasts, hipsters and layabouts; smoke rises in summer from the abundance of barbecues. But there was always a niggling suspicion that the fun couldn’t last – that Tempelhof’s unique status as a hugely valuable piece of land essentially given over to the average picnicking Berliner was too good to be true.



“No other city would treat itself to such a crown jewel [of open space],” said Ingo Gräning of Tempelhof Projekt, the state company running the site, as he surveyed the runways and frostbitten green from the terminal roof. “There’s 300 hectares there. Monaco is 200.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘No other city would allow itself such a crown jewel of public space’ ... Tempelhof park with the air traffic control tower in the background. Photograph: Ciarán Fahey

The last three aeroplanes flew out of Tempelhof in November 2008, a month after the airport’s official closure. The buildings, however, have mostly remained in some form of use. The 72m radar tower is still used by the German army to monitor flight traffic. And the remarkable Nazi-era terminal, 300,000 sq m including hangars that curve out 1.23km under a column-free roof – said to be the biggest protected building in the world – is mostly leased out. The biggest tenants? The Berlin police, who occupy some 46,000 sq m, around 15% of the total. (The Polizei have been tenants since 1951, when the US military, which took over the airport after the second world war, began renting out parts of the building.)



As well as the police, there is Berlin’s traffic control authority, the central lost property office, a kindergarten, a dancing school and one of the city’s oldest revue theatres – just some of more than 100 businesses and institutions that call the former airport home.



City planners wanted more, however. During local elections in 2011, plans were mooted for new commercial areas and offices, 4,700 homes and a large public library, the latter a pet project of former Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit.

Planners promised they’d only build on 25% of the site, leaving 230 free hectares; politicians promised the new apartments would include affordable housing.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tempelhof’s classic design has made it a favourite for large events. Photograph: Ciarán Fahey

Not everyone was buying it. “This government hasn’t built a single social apartment for 10 years – are they going to start right when park-side real estate opens up?” John Riceburg asked in Exberliner magazine. Meanwhile, the 100% Tempelhofer Feld initiative, complaining of “empty promises, no guarantees,” gathered enough signatures to force the city into holding a referendum.



Last May, after months of bitter debate and despite a campaign backed by much of the media, 64.3% of voters chose to keep Tempelhof as it is. Politicians were left red-faced and investors empty-handed. “It’s a defeat and it’s a clear one,” said Wowereit. Some media outlets were less gracious. “The wonder is that Berlin still carries on,” wrote Ulf Poschardt, deputy editor of conservative newspaper Die Welt. “In the Prussian capital, hippie culture is state policy.”



'In the Prussian capital, hippie culture is state policy' Die Welt deputy editor Ulf Poschardt

The rhetoric may be overblown, but the remarkable fact is that Berlin will ultimately not further develop a hugely valuable piece of real estate, all because the people decided they didn’t trust big business not to mess up the park they loved. It’s a state of affairs that would be almost unimaginable in Frankfurt or Munich, let alone London or New York.



But the capital has always been special in this respect. “Berlin is a pioneer in re-using buildings that were left over after the division of the city,” Tempelhof Projekt chief Gerhard W Steindorf says, citing techno club Tresor as an example of a successful metamorphosis. “It’s a party city. And Tempelhof has a raw charm that people like. It’s not ready made, with everything at hand.”



Indeed, Tempelhof has already played host to major events, fairs, product launches, fashion shows and concerts. Seven hangars – the smallest capable of holding 2,000 people, the largest 3,800 – have hosted extravagant automobile industry unveilings, while the glitzy Bundespresseball (Federal Press Ball) took place in the 3,500 sq m main hall last year. Tempelhof will host a Formula E race in May, and Europe’s first Lollapalooza music festival in September.



“Now that the field’s future is safe we can continue to have more events like that,” said Steindorf, still excited by memories of Die Toten Hosen (The Dead Trousers) playing to 50,000 in 2013.



Also safe are the communal gardens. Lovingly tended by green-fingered apartment-dwellers grateful to break free of their four walls, the allotments are often adorned with old couches for gardeners to entertain visitors; others have no gardens but bring their couches anyway. Beer is usually involved.



The conservation law means the Tempelhof airfield will remain largely as it is. “The plan is to develop the park with direct community involvement, but there are restrictions on what can be done. New buildings are out of the question,” Steindorf says.



Unlike the airfield, the terminal building will be developed while respecting its protected status. Steindorf is excited by plans for studios and recording facilities, offices for start-ups and the general conversation process into a “campus for creatives”. He adds that no apartments will be built at Tempelhof “as long as the conservation law exists,” and though he respects the referendum result, he laments a missed opportunity to build cheaply on public land.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Tempelhof partier Photograph: Ciarán Fahey

“There are other areas available but they’re usually in private hands and not central. The whole Tempelhof site belongs to the city of Berlin. This was the chance for affordable housing,” he said. “Berlin needs housing. Another 250,000 people are expected to move to the city by 2020.”



While that may be true, it is undeniable that distrust was a key factor in shooting down the city’s proposals, particularly regarding affordable housing. Steindorf argues that public representatives did work hard to keep costs down, and that a mix of affordable and, well, unaffordable was envisioned, similar to schemes in Munich and Hamburg, with cheaper housing on lower floors crowned by the more expensive variety above. “We don’t want people driving long distances to work. We’ve seen what happens in other large cities, the urban sprawl and problems. The inner city has to be given priority. We need to avoid traffic and people living outside the city in sleepy satellite towns,” Steindorf said. “Berlin did what it could but the chance wasn’t taken. It quickly spiralled into, ‘We don’t want it.’ It was an emotional decision. But I’m not sure if people wanted Tempelhof to stay exactly the way it is.”



The public has until 14 March to put forward ideas for the recreational development of Tempelhofer Feld, though their wildest dreams will be kept in check by the Tempelhof Conservation Act. This prohibits construction anywhere on the former airfield and ensures only limited development. For example, no trees can be planted within a large inner circle, not even to replace dead ones. Park benches face careful scrutiny. Permanent toilets cannot be constructed, nor changing rooms for sports facilities. Nesting birds were already protected, as were fenced-off areas for insects – 112 spider and 68 beetle species have been identified at Tempelhof.



Despite its half-return to nature, Tempelhof could not be mistaken for anything other than an airport. Runway signs and markings have attained reverence among the revellers; an aeroplane once used for training by fire services provides a unique perch for resting birds including hawks; and information signs inform visitors about episodes from Tempelhof’s history.



That history is part of what makes Templehof so unique. The Prussian army was conducting manoeuvres here as far back as 1722, while Germany’s oldest active football club, Berliner FC Germania, was founded at Templehof in 1888. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin flew one of his airships overhead on 29 August 1909; five days later, 150,000 people watched Orville Wright fly eight laps.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest An old aeroplane at Tempelhof. Photograph: Ciarán Fahey

The German airline Lufthansa grew out of Tempelhof in the 1920s, and by 1930 Tempelhof was handling more passengers than any other airport in Europe. In May 1933, Hermann Göring took over the aviation industry: Lufthansa planes had swastikas on their tails until 1945. The Nazis created a concentration camp at Tempelhof, an early prototype closed in 1936 to make way for the new airport promoted by Hitler, though never completed. After Germany’s defeat, Tempelhof became famous for the Berlin airlift in 1948-49, when the western allies responded to a Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin by flying 2.3 million tonnes of freight into the divided city. When civilian flights resumed, Tempelhof became Germany’s busiest airport, an important departure point for East Germans fleeing the Soviet sector until the Berlin Wall sealed the border in 1961. In 1975, civilian traffic was transferred to Tegel airport in West Berlin’s French sector, but the US military continued to use Tempelhof after German reunification until 1993, when it was handed over to the Berlin airport authority. The plan to build a new super airport, Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), made Tempelhof redundant.



By then, however, the airport had come to symbolise freedom on the frontline of the cold war. Tours of the terminal building are popular with visitors fascinated by the airport’s Nazi and cold war history; the park itself is named Tempelhofer Freiheit, or Tempelhof Freedom. For better or worse, the development plans were perceived as a threat to this spirit. Berliners had had their taste of freedom; in hindsight, it is no surprise that they refused to give it back.

