Architect wants to bury airport under a mountain

After years of debate over its future, the Berlin state government decided in November to turn a big chunk of the airfield into a 250-hectare park, but locals like Tigges are still hotly disputing how best to protect the iconic site.

Tigges' tongue-in-cheek plan for a 1,000 metre-high mountain was one of 80 proposals entered into an international competition over how to develop an area on the edge of the future park. A winner is due to be announced in May.

"I chose the idea of a mountain precisely because it can't be done. Instead it'll awaken people's imaginations," he said.

Tigges said Berlin risks ruining the central landmark where the Western Allies staged an airlift to defy a Soviet blockade in 1948/49 - and hopes his vision of a mountain for the overwhelmingly flat city will give developers pause for thought.

"We can't lose this site that's got so much cultural and symbolic meaning just for more of the same old, mediocre housing development," said Tigges.

Dubbed "the mother of all airports" by British architect Sir Norman Foster, Tempelhof was the world's first airport with regular passenger flights in 1923. But as the smallest of three Berlin airports and running at a loss, it was closed in October.

The site, which is almost as big as New York's Central Park, has long had a strong hold on the emotions of Berliners. Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those opposing its closure.

A number of locals lobbied hard for US President Barack Obama to speak in Tempelhof when he visited the city last July before his election. In the end he did not speak there, but made several references to the Berlin airlift during his address.

Other ideas for the airport include creating a red-light district, a zoo, a private hospital and a film studio.

Whatever the city decides, the 1,200 metre-long terminal building designed by Ernst Sagebiel will stay - the monolithic limestone Nazi-era edifice is under historical preservation.

- Reuters