Tempelhof Field is a stand in for larger discourses and narratives of urban change in Berlin. 

Tempelhof’s high-profile status within the city as a space with competing visions for its future has inevitably bound the field with larger economic, social, and political discourses.¹ Inherently, voids reflect the climate of their urban surroundings, and Tempelhof Field is no exception.² Thus, the field has become a place where people can see processes of gentrification and change in their city unfold, and a place where debates around who belongs in the city, efficacy of government, and agendas of development are tangible. 

The Tempelhof Freiheit Masterplan plan, although never completed, shows an initial intention of development amid a longstanding and contentious debate about public space, housing, and development in Berlin.³ Because of the city’s ongoing housing crisis and resettlement agenda for refugees, the Tempelhof Field is one of many places subjected to development interests in the city,  and responses to the proposed builds illustrate larger citizen sentiments around urban change in the city as a whole. 

When the airport was closed in 2009, the area turned into a “potentially high value fallow land in the centre of Germany’s capital”.⁴ The government aimed to incorporate civic involvement in the planning process while balancing public and private investment interests. Citizen reaction to this plan was overwhelmingly representative of larger sentiments in Berlin that government development remains insufficient in meeting the needs of residents; that whatever is built will likely negatively impact areas already experiencing traumatic gentrification and displacement processes.⁵ 

People do not feel as though the government will deliver on their promises to make social spaces, “we all know that this is not going to happen,” said Juan.⁶ Even further, the efforts shown by the government to involve citizens in the planning process for the field were received as wildly insufficient.⁷ 

The field is a salient example of  larger citizen sentiments about urban development and processes of gentrification. Rene spoke at length about multiple of these narratives that have become central discussions on the field right now, also charted in an assessment of participation in the field planning by Carolin Genz.⁸ One of these narratives used by politicians enmeshed in Berlin’s building lobby (Baulobby)—that the city’s housing crisis can be addressed through development of “empty” spaces.⁹ 

Large sections of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political parties are well entangled with Berlin’s development lobby, and from a profit-driven perspective, “there’s thinking of Berlin as a place with empty space that is just waiting to be developed”.¹⁰ The narrative that empty space is ripe for development is larger than Tempelhof, but is highly tangible there as the space is of such visible status and impacts so many different user groups. Justification for development of empty space in order to solve the housing or migration reception crisis in Berlin is viewed as reminiscent of colonial narratives, and with the 2014 referendum, Berlin’s residents shared their adversity to such agendas.¹¹ 

Personal testimony made clear that the field is, in fact, neither empty nor clear for development, and that people did not see building as the solution to the city’s problems. Even without abundant citizen initiatives and activity on the field, the field is rich with biodiversity and unconventional instances of nature that support countless environmental benefits to the city and its citizens.¹² Beyond what is physical on the field, the field is like many voids in that it is constantly being used in ways unrecognized by government or development investors, and it is never really empty.¹³ Additionally, the unique historical legacy of the field—particularly its time under control of the Nazi party during the Second World War—is of great significance, and using what is not there through the preservation of the field is a unique occasion to remember and honor victims of National Socialism.¹⁴ The politics of memory and the preservation of history in voids is thus also salient on the field where other void spaces in Berlin do not garner as much attention. 

Tempelhof is a high profile example of the development processes occurring across Berlin’s neighborhoods that turn seemingly vacant or underused spaces into private developments. A practical understanding of citizens’ wishes was absent in the field’s participatory planning process, and thus did nothing to assuage citizen fears about rising rents and gentrification in their neighborhoods.¹⁵ The involvement in Tempelhof Field’s planning and management can be understood as both a reaction to larger development narratives that citizens see playing out on the field, and a case example of what Rosol identifies as increased citizen involvement in city decision making processes in urban spatial politics.¹⁶ 

Demographic change specifically on the field reflects larger demographic change across Berlin. Intertwined with broader city development, demographics on the field are tangible indicators of gentrification in Berlin, for which interviewees expressed great concern. Juan situated the changing demographics of gardeners in Allmende-Kontor and neighboring community gardens as a result of how the city is developing and changing as a whole.¹⁷ The higher population of students, young people, and white people in the garden is in contrast to its earlier years which saw more involvement from people of more diverse backgrounds and people from the adjacent neighborhood of Neukölln, historically of lower socioeconomic status and culturally diverse.¹⁸ 

Berlin is experiencing rapid gentrification, which plays out across the field in many ways, and it is through the field that Juan sees nearby neighborhoods like Neukölln “suffering a lot”.¹⁹ This loss of cultural diversity in the field’s activities and groups is a reflection of the city’s overall gentrification and changing demographics rather than a result of changes in how activities are run. As Berlin homogenizes, so do many of its green spaces, of which Tempelhof is the largest and most politically contentious. 

The high levels of publicity given to the space due to its spatial centrality, size, and relevance to many groups, the discourses visible on the field garner much attention—even if they have been playing out throughout the city for years. Some groups use this to their advantage, such as Allmende-Kontor, who remains on temporary contract with the government, but has no plans to “be driven out”.²⁰ 

The field’s most high profile and contentious use began in 2015 with the amendment to the protection law, allowing the construction of temporary housing for refugees, which still remains in the form of shipping container adapted housing on the hangar building tarmac. This amendment continues to complicate discussions around the space’s use and development, as well as larger reckoning with the city’s role in resettling refugee populations. Because a small area of the field is designated for initially temporary housing (that has emerged to be semi-permanent), many fear this will become a loophole for private development, but do not want to bring the issue of refugee resettlement into their development discourse due to concerns of warping separate arguments. Regardless, the occurrence of the temporary refugee container village (known as Containerdorf) brings in larger questions of who is welcome on the field and in the city. 

The site overwhelmingly assumes large and complex discourses of urban change due to its size, characteristics, and many uses.

1. Beveridge, Ross, Markus Kip, and Heike Oevermann. “From Wastelands to Waiting Lands: Retrieving Possibility from the Voids of Berlin.” City 26, no. 2/3 (2022): 285. doi:10.1080/13604813.2022.2040200. ↩︎
2. Hwang, S. W., and Lee, S. J. “Unused, underused, and misused: An Examination of Theories on Urban Void Spaces.” Urban Research & Practice 13, no. 5 (2020): 541. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uvm.edu/10.1080/17535069.2019.1634140  ↩︎
3. Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umwelt. Freiraum für die Stadt von Morgen. Tempelhofer Freiheit. 2013. https://use.metropolis.org/system/images/1038/original/tempelhofer_freiheit.pdf ↩︎
4. “Activation of an urban open space through citizen participation.” Urban Sustainability Exchange, n.d. https://use.metropolis.org/case-studies/germany-berlin-tempelhofer-freiheit-urban-open-space. ↩︎
5. René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023. ↩︎
6. Juan Coka Arcos, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 16, 2023. ↩︎
7. Genz, Carolin. “The Wide Field of Participation: An Essay on the Struggle for Citizen Participation and the Future of the Tempelhof Field.” Journal of Urban Life 2015. ↩︎
8. Ibid. ↩︎
9. René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023.  ↩︎
10. René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023.  ↩︎
11. René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023; Beveridge, Ross, Markus Kip, and Heike Oevermann. 2022. “From Wastelands to Waiting Lands: Retrieving Possibility from the Voids of Berlin.” City 26 (2/3): 285. doi:10.1080/13604813.2022.2040200. ↩︎
12. Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin. Directed by Matthew Gandy. 2017. Film; Hölzl, S. E., Veskov, M., Scheibner, T., Le, T. T., & Kleinschmit, B. (2021). Vulnerable socioeconomic groups are disproportionately exposed to multiple environmental burden in Berlin – implications for planning. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 13(2), 334–350. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uvm.edu/10.1080/19463138.2021.1904246.; Gesetz zum Erhalt des Tempelhofer Feldes (ThF-Gesetz), June 14, 2014: 190. ↩︎
13. René Kreichauf, Microsoft Teams interview with Clara Feldman, December 5, 2023. ↩︎
14. Gesetz zum Erhalt des Tempelhofer Feldes (ThF-Gesetz), June 14, 2014; Starzmann, Maria Theresia. 2014. “Excavating Tempelhof Airfield: Objects of Memory and the Politics of Absence.” Rethinking History 18 (2): 211–29. doi:10.1080/13642529.2013.858453. ↩︎
15. Genz, Carolin. “The Wide Field of Participation: An Essay on the Struggle for Citizen Participation and the Future of the Tempelhof Field.” Journal of Urban Life 2015: 14. ↩︎
16. Rosol, Marit. “Community Volunteering as Neoliberal Strategy? Green Space Production in Berlin.” Antipode 44, no. 1 (2012): 241. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2011.00861.x. ↩︎
17. Juan Coka Arcos, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 16, 2023. ↩︎
18. Ibid. ↩︎
19. Ibid. ↩︎
20. Kristin Hensel, Zoom interview with Clara Feldman, November 11, 2023. ↩︎