‘Unique pearl in the heart of Berlin’

The use of Tempelhofer Feld (Tempelhof Field) in Berlin has long been controversial. From 3 July to 22 September 2024, a randomly selected participation process on the future of the site was held.
On 21/22 September 2024, a clear majority of the 150 participants present in the second dialogue workshop on the future of Tempelhofer Feld spoke out against building on the edge of the field. Instead, most favoured further development of the various uses, such as cultural, educational and sports facilities. Of the ten so-called development perspectives for the field that received the most support from the participants, none of them envisaged peripheral development.
‘Preserving the pearl in the heart of Berlin’
The development perspective with the title ‘Preserving the globally unique pearl in the heart of Berlin’ received the most votes from the plenum as a whole. The key points mentioned were ‘no development’, ‘promotion and expansion of the existing site’ and ‘THF for everyone’. The importance of the field for nature conservation, climate protection and climate adaptation was particularly emphasised.
"It's a place of freedom and regeneration for Berliners and visitors alike. There should be no building on the Tempelhofer Feld," said one dialogue workshop participant. Another participant stated: "After this discussion-intensive weekend, there can be no project for residential development. We have unanimously agreed on this."
Urban Development Senator Christian Gaebler (SPD) thanked all participants at the end of the event. The aim was to ‘make Tempelhofer Feld even more usable for the city’. The results will now be analysed and fed into the upcoming ideas competition. ‘Nothing will be lost in terms of opinions,’ said Gaebler. The ideas competition is due to start on 13 November and run until May 2025. At the end, the dialogue workshop will discuss the results of the ideas competition once again.
275 participants
What could happen to Tempelhof Field in the future is the focus of the dialogue process. 275 randomly selected Berliners were invited to engage in a broad and open dialogue with different perspectives. The participants for the dialogue workshops were randomly selected in advance: 20,000 people from the Berlin residents' register were contacted and asked to take part. Of the approximately 1,000 people interested, 275 were lucky.
Over the course of two weekends in September 2024, the participants were intensively involved with Tempelhofer Feld, gaining specialist knowledge on topics such as urban development and housing, climate and nature conservation, public welfare and open spaces, discussing different perspectives for the future broadly and openly and developing recommendations together.
How to deal with Tempelhofer Feld?
This dialogue process takes into account how it has been used to date and how the anticipated demand for housing will develop. Other aspects include the participants' utilisation wishes and the significance of the historic airport building with regard to the consequences for the development and utilisation of the site. The results are to be incorporated into the terms of reference for the subsequent international planning ideas competition.
Tempelhofer Feld is the former airfield of the former Tempelhof Airport. The site, which is now used as a park and leisure area, has a total area of around 304 hectares. Around 90 per cent belongs to the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district and around 10 per cent to the Neukölln district.
On 25 May 2014, Berliners decided to completely ban construction on the former airfield in a referendum on the "100% Tempelhofer Feld" popular initiative. 68.2 per cent of those who voted were in favour. The proposal put forward by the Berlin House of Representatives as an alternative envisaged moderate peripheral development and the protection of the 230-hectare central green areas of the inner field. However, only 44.3 per cent of voters voted in favour of this proposal. The turnout was 46.1 per cent.
Longer history
However, the debate about the (re)utilisation of the field has a longer history. It has been going on since the political decision by the states of Berlin, Brandenburg and the federal government in 1996 to close the two inner-city airports Tempelhof and Tegel in favour of Willy Brandt Airport (BER) in Schönefeld.
While the airport building, as a World Heritage-listed monument with an eventful past, offers only limited possibilities for use and change due to the existing building structure and monument protection, the situation is different for Tempelhof Field. Consequently, many of the debates on urban development policy have centred on the question of the use of the field. The ideas put forward differed widely in some cases and the public debate was repeatedly characterised by strong polarisation.
"A new debate is needed"
The governing coalition of CDU and SPD elected in the repeat election in 2023 agreed on the future of Tempelhofer Feld in its "Government Policy Guidelines 2023 - 2026":
"In view of the exacerbated housing shortage since the 2014 referendum, a new debate on the future of Tempelhofer Feld is needed. With an international urban planning competition, the Senate will explore the possibilities of careful peripheral development in limited parts of the site. The vast majority of the open space will remain protected for recreation, leisure, sport and culture with a climate-friendly overall design. The field is intended to make an important contribution to Berlin's net zero aim.
"Reassessment by Berliners in a decisive way"
The peripheral development is intended to create residential neighbourhoods with a wide range of social amenities for the new residents and the urban community. The housing construction is to be reserved for the state-owned housing association LWU as well as cooperatives oriented towards the common good and will be climate-neutral in operation. The use of decentralised and city-compatible renewable energies and greening will make an additional contribution to climate neutrality. The reassessment by Berliners is decisive for the Senate on this issue of city-wide importance."
The Berlin House of Representatives approved the government policy guidelines presented at its meeting on 25 May 2023.
Dialogue instead of confrontation
In view of the complexity of the issue, but also the potential for conflict, the Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing would like to initiate public understanding with a "dialogue workshop". Instead of allowing the various interest groups to clash in a public debate about "the right solution", a group of around 250 randomly selected residents will initially express their expectations and ideas for Tempelhofer Feld. The various stakeholders involved in Tempelhofer Feld will be invited to contribute to this process by sharing their knowledge and experience.
The dialogue process is carried out with the integrated international urban and open space planning ideas competition and an accompanying public participation in the period from May 2024 to mid/end 2025, subject to political decisions. The aim is to use a city-wide dialogue process to approach a qualified reassessment of Tempelhofer Feld and a possible amendment to the law on Tempelhofer Feld.
Ideas competition launched
The Europe-wide, two-phase urban and open space planning ideas competition for Tempelhofer Feld began on 13 November 2024. Planning teams from the fields of urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture from all over Europe are invited to contribute their expertise and participate in the competition with urban and open space planning designs. A jury will select the best five designs in June 2025. Participants in the dialogue workshops will have a seat on the jury.
Following the competition, the results will be presented in a third dialogue workshop in July 2025 and made accessible to all interested parties in an exhibition in September 2025.
Opposition criticises participation process
The opposition in the Berlin House of Representatives has criticised the participation process as a farce. Katalin Gennburg, spokesperson for urban development for the left-wing parliamentary group, called on the Senate to cancel the ideas competition. The fact that the Senate is continuing the process is evidence of a considerable denial of reality and shows how committed the SPD and CDU are to the profits of the construction lobby.
The ‘ideology-driven development plans’ should be scrapped once and for all, said BUND Managing Director Tilmann Heuser in view of the clear vote of the workshop participants. ‘Sinking even more money into a development competition now would not only be a clear disregard for the will of the citizens on several occasions, but also irresponsible in view of Berlin's budget crisis.’
Critical view of architects
Green parliamentary group leader Werner Graf also pointed out that the development of the field would not solve Berlin's housing market problems. According to Graf, the Senate is trying to use the discussion about the field to distract from the fact that it is making no progress with its current construction projects and is missing its new-build targets.
The architects' alliance “Architects4THF” also takes a critical view of building on the edge of the field. Following the announcement of the ideas competition, Berlin urban planners and architects joined forces here to preserve Tempelhofer Feld in its current form and protect the democratic culture. ‘The tender is misleading and is being used as a political instrument to publicise the intentions of the Berlin Senate,’ explain the initiators of the alliance, Jolene Lee and Malte Willms. Building flats here ‘would drive up the land value of the surrounding properties to such an extent that the accessibility of entire neighbourhoods would be drastically restricted.’ The Senate would not have taken the proposals of the urban development programme for 2040 for affordable housing in Berlin outside Tempelhofer Feld seriously.
‘Emptiness has a space, silence has a voice’
‘Not building is also an architectural statement - because emptiness has a space, silence has a voice,’ explain Lee and Willms. ‘We recognise the relevance of building new social housing to tackle the housing crisis. However, we share the assessment of several studies that show that there are many other possibilities for housing construction that go beyond Tempelhofer Feld,’ say the architects.
For Christian Gräff, urban development policy spokesperson for the CDU parliamentary group, the dialogue workshops were ‘not about the question of whether to build, but about what’. The coalition agreement, which provides for peripheral development, still applies. The intention was also not to rely on the recommendations of a small group, but rather to consult all Berliners again in case of doubt.
Take the results of the dialogue workshops seriously
Oliver Wiedmann, Berlin office manager of the Mehr Demokratie association, calls on the Senate to take the results of the dialogue workshops seriously. He understands that the Senate's decision to simply continue the competition is causing irritation in civil society. Although the results of the workshops are not binding, ‘they cannot be completely ignored’.
Wiedmann considers the whole process to be wrong. The first step should have been to decide whether the field should be built on, ideally with the help of a new referendum, according to the Mehr Demokratie proposal. Then the design could have been discussed with the citizens in workshops. But as it stands, chaos reigns and the processes are simply not clear. What happens after the competition? How will politicians deal with the results that emerge? These are questions that should have been clarified beforehand.