Relic No. 002Catalogued
The Airport That Waited
- Site
- Berlin Brandenburg Airport
- Era
- Due 2011. Opened 2020.
- Material
- Concrete, ambition, smoke ducts
- Intended use
- An airport
- Actual use
- A nine-year retreat
- Status
- Open. Budgeted at €2.83 billion. Later estimates above €9 billion.
BERLIN. Due October 2011. Then June 2012. Then not at all, for some time. The fire protection system had been built contrary to its permit and failed its acceptance test. Smoke, it emerged, would not go where smoke must go.
The doors stayed shut for eight more years.
Opened 31 October 2020. Nine years late. More than three times the budget. During a pandemic. Nobody was flying.
Patience is a virtue. Berlin has made it infrastructure.
Noted.
