Photographers Robert Rieger and Felix Brüggemann have released a book that pays homage to the recently closed Tegel airport and captures its distinctive hexagonal terminal that once served as a bastion of freedom for walled-in West Berlin.
Called Flughafen Tegel, the book contains a series of photographs captured during the coronavirus lockdown in 2020 before the airport closed in late October, alongside some shots taken when it opened in the 1970s.
The building features distinctive rounded glazing
Separated from Soviet-controlled East Germany by the Berlin Wall, a generation of West Berliners saw the hexagonal terminal at Tegel, which opened in 1974, as a lifeline that connected them to the outside world.
With their book, Rieger and Brüggemann hope to capture the deep, emotional attachment that many Berlin residents still have to Tegel by including colour slides that were taken by Brüggemann's grandfather shortly after the terminal opened. The entrance area features a red, protruding roof
"We found these pictures in his estate, and they speak of the pride the people of the walled-in city felt when Tegel was opened in the early seventies," Brüggemann told Dezeen.
"Neither West nor East Berlin exists anymore but as painful as the divided city must have been, it also provided people with a sense of identity, therefore closing Tegel feels like another loss to many."
"Nearly everyone has their 'special relationship' to Tegel," Rieger added. &...