March 16, 2006...4:37 pm
Trains, Planes and an end to the romance…
(The new Hauptbahnhof, over the river from the Government District)
The Hauptbahnhof is nearly finished, and today the people in charge got the go ahead to turn ost-tastic Schoenefeld Airport into the new, shiny Berlin-Brandenburg International (opening sometime in the next decade).
I understand that a BIG city like Berlin needs proper transport links, that in the willy-waving competition that is global-city comparison Zoo Station and Tegel just don’t pass muster, but I think that once Berlin has the transport links that a city of its size no doubt needs, it will have lost something along the way.
All three of Berlin’s airports for example have something going for them. I remember when my step-dad came to Berlin and flew into Tempelhof it was an experience for the lover of Cold War spy-novels that travelling nowadays can no longer offer. Tegel is a great spot for celeb- and politico-spotting as there is nowhere for them to hide, and Schoenefeld itself is like a little slice of Eastern Europe, especially the train station.
When I first came to Berlin I landed at Schoenefeld, and just waiting for the Airport Express into the city on those platforms gave me a distinct feeling of being ’someplace else’. Most modern airports and train stations, in thrall to the glass and steel architecture of, well, every other modern airport and train station, just don’t give the feeling of ‘travel’ that they should. I really noticed this a few years ago when I was working for a couple of months in Dublin, and took numerous Easyjet flights to various regional English airports to connect to Ryanair. Liverpool, Luton, Bristol…in my memory they are all the same, and I can’t distinguish between them. At least Stansted has a monorail.
Arriving by train at Zoo is also an ‘experience’, with the punks and the bums and the hustle and bustle of a place that is too small for its function. Even the name itself conjures up a certain feeling, that Hauptbahnhof Lehter Bahnhof just can’t quite compete with. Admittedly the reputation of Zoo Station has not always been a good one…but at least it provokes a reaction. The only reaction the new Hauptbahnhof inspires is “fucking hell, that’s big’. Which I guess is the whole point.
It is obvious that Berlin needs a proper airport, to offer a proper schedule of continental flights, to have a train station that can comfortably handle the volume of traffic that flows through the city, but it is just a shame that all we seem to be getting are big glass shopping malls with transport links attached. Leipzig (yeah, again) has a fantastic old school train station, fully modernised, and whatever the origins of Tempelhof, it is an awe-inspiring building…it’s a pity they don’t build ‘em like they used to.
On the Atari DJ Tapedeck: ‘Zoo Station,’ U2 (had to be, didn’t it?)
13 Comments
March 16, 2006 at 5:18 pm
I’ve lived in Berlin for 10 years now and the pace of re-building hasn’t slackened. As the previous writer wrote, contemporary architects love glass-and-steel structures, just the people get in the way, like litter. At the moment, Berlin has 3 main centres - The Zoo area, Alexanderplatz and the Hauptbahnhof to the east. With the new Lehrter Bahnhof soon to dominate the landscape, both the Zoo area and the Hauptbahnhof area will attract fewer visitors and may turn into ’second-class’ districts. Just south of the new main station is the Friedrichstrasse, an up-market street that attracts mainly well-to-do shoppers and office staff. The city is slowly building its own zones, like London, the rich in the centre, then the middle-class in the ‘Merc-belt’, then the working class wherever they can find affordable flats. You may soon be able to fly direct to Tokyo from here. We’ll wave to you from our pre-fab balconies.
March 16, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Hey John, thanks for the comment…although I doubt I’ll be affording any flights to Japan any time soon.
It’s true about the different zones, when it comes to real estate space (especially retail), and the difference in average rents in different neighbourhoods is still widening.
The only wonder I have is, with regards the ‘merc-class’ is…are there enough of them to create such zones of affluence. Aren’t most of the big companies and the band of professionals that would populate such areas still in places like Frankfurt and Stuttgart (in the main)? I always thought that this absence of a big, wealthy class in Berlin was what kept the rents low…maybe they’ll come once there’s a shiny new airport there…
March 17, 2006 at 11:14 am
I had read about the new train station, but this was the first picture I’ve seen of it. I have to say it’s pretty disappointing — the article instilled a picture of a giant glass cathedral, this looks like the headquarters for evil robots or something.
I suppose the same feelings you have can be translated to sports stadiums — you can’t beat the feeling of an old stadium or arena, but they are inevitable torn down to make way for luxury boxes.
March 17, 2006 at 2:57 pm
I’m hoping it’s more exciting inside than out. Meh.
March 18, 2006 at 10:41 am
Hamish - sports stadiums, yes! All the new football stadiums in England seem to be just variations on the same theme nowadays as well.
Bowleserised - the best thing about the Hauptbahnhof, which I neglected to mention in the post for reasons of forgetfulness, is that fact that real, proper Sunday shopping will be on offer as the mall will be open seven days a week. But that’s about it.
March 18, 2006 at 4:31 pm
That station is just too unBerlin. It makes the city look like Mönchengladbach or some other hellhole. (I’ve never been to M’gladbach, by the way. Might be lovely. Is the football team still up to much?) It was much nicer-looking when only the two long squat bits were in place and the tower was yet to be erected. Now it just looks pants. Still, in a regenerative mood, I’ll be happy if it brings that area to life a bit. It’s one of those oddly dead bits of central Berlin, where there seems to be no organic life at all, like the Docklands used to be in London when they had all the posh flats but not a single shop where you could buy a pint of milk, say. That’s all changed for the better now. So hurrah, perhaps, after all, for Lehrter StadtCityHauptCityBahnhof!
March 18, 2006 at 10:31 pm
Hi BiB,
The weirdest place in Germany I have ever been to was Leverkusen, which was basically a motorway junction, the Bayer factory, and a ‘town centre’ that looked like a bad 60s shopping centre in somewhere like Coventry. It was very, very strange.
April 5, 2006 at 12:29 pm
The first time I saw Berlin I flew into Tegel on a charter flight. My husband was one of the pilots and we flew an empty A-300 airbus in for the summer months for Pan Am. I guess for me Tegel will always be very special.
April 5, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Wow, were you sitting up front? That must have been special! Tegel is a bit of a joke for being the main airport of a major capital city, but at least it has character in its quaintness. And compared to most international airports, it is close to the centre.
April 5, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Yes, I sat in the jumpseat in the cockpit. What a thrill to see Berlin from this perspective! It was something else!
April 5, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Sounds amazing! I only once went in the cockpit of a plane, and that was just when it was at cruising altitude. That was pretty cool in itself, but to see the city from that perspective must have been cool.
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