15 Mar '11 Tempelhof
One morning I woke early to wander Berlin's Tempelhof airport, now re-opened as a municipal park. It was cold, about -3°C. I came by the section facing the district of Neukölln, my home for the duration of my stay. The airport's infrastructure spilt out into the surrounding city parks and cemeteries there.
Recycled infrastructure. Recycled not from an airport but from a wound, perhaps, and into a void. Tempelhof is an expansive void, surrounded on all sides by districts of Berlin. Inside its vast perimeter, the occasional jogger tackles the psychological effect that is an open horizon.
Few public urban spaces are so large and contiguous as to be practically indigestible in a single view. I paused to consider this, thinking it might be a luxury Berliners take for granted. Perhaps, I thought, we could import a salt flat to Central London.
Implant it.
I watched two mothers with prams urging their children to venture out to play on the runway. It was otherwise strangely quiet. Only the sparse, intermittent sound of birds.