Nine years late and $4 billion over budget, the airport is already outdated. Repeated blunders dented the image of German efficiency, but the “poor but sexy” capital has long been a bit different. [...]
Under construction for 14 years, the airport is nine years past its original opening date and more than $4 billion over budget. Every month, it costs several million dollars just to keep the unused airport running.
— The New York Times
Katrin Bennhold, The New York Times’s Berlin bureau chief, takes a look back at the unbelievable saga of the long-awaited and — nine years behind schedule — now finally opened Berlin-Brandenburg Willy Brandt Airport.
"The foundations of the terminal were already laid when it emerged that the star architect hired for the project, Meinhard von Gerkan, had designed the airport without a proper duty-free area — a vital source of revenue — because he had no time for the 'mall-ifiction' of airports," Bennhold writes. "Plans had to be adjusted in a panic."
Often rivaling in infamy with Germany's other troubled public vanity development, the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the new Berlin airport ultimately managed to defend the title of longest delayed, highest budget-exceeding, and most openly ridiculed project.
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In better news, the facility's twelve Starbucks stores open since last year have managed to keep the airport profitable. The coffee chain's $27 Schnitzel-lattes have proven popular with squatters and construction workers.
Reports that German officials have provided hospitality training for America's TSA agents have not been confirmed.
it's got a heavily wistful communist era noir effect, worth the extra money to connect back to the city's history. rem couldn't have done it better himself.
The need to crap up every air terminal interior on Earth with giant advertising signs and misguided art pieces is unfortunate.
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