In Berlin there is an ambiguous boundary between nature and artifice, between geography and architecture. From a certain point of view, these reliefs can be considered as architecture.
According to this same principle of extrapolation, the immense linear building of Tempelhof airport, by its morphology and scale, could feed this ambiguous relationship between nature and artifice, between architecture and geography.
The Big Roof: A suspended "bay of angels
The curved shape, scale and length of the roof, when one stands on it, gives the feeling of a walk on a seafront ledge facing an unobstructed immensity opening onto the horizon.
Based on this extrapolated vision, we propose to set up on the roof a series of architectural and landscape devices, borrowed from the imaginary of the seaside: a main promenade along the horizon, pontoons in jetty, bypassing footbridges, sheds, and a single large terrace for collective gatherings.
These architectures and infrastructures compose a sequence of events of varying character and scale and punctuate the long walk along the roof.
Scenographic tour
History and stories
The history we have to present is sequenced in three interdependent sets. There is the whole of the great events of the 20th century, often painful, like the Second World War and the tensions of the blockade. There is the local history, linked to the immediate territory, a strong political and sometimes poetic history. There is also a sum of stories, those of the inhabitants, those lived and transmitted orally from one generation to another, the enriching and eminently significant anecdotes.
The route of the museum-walk as we have envisaged it, is built according to a logic both spatial and vertical. The tower n°4 can be isolated from the natural light. We can install large projections and immersive devices. We propose to deploy in the tower a scenography specific to the great events of history and to arrange the stories of the Berlin daily life on the last level of the tower.
Outside, on the roof, a set of devices for observing the territory will evoke strong symbolic stories, specific to the Tempelhof site. They will connect the past and the present. Also scenographic devices deploying part of the museum's mediation.
