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Paper short abstract

Tempelhof Airport in Berlin is a massive heritage building under constant adaptation. Drawing on planning documents, guidelines, and interviews, this paper shows how fire safety, climate systems, and event infrastructure reshape the building. It argues that maintenance is continuous construction.

Paper long abstract

The Tempelhof Airport building in Berlin is one of the largest existing buildings in Europe. Constructed in the late 1930s as part of the monumental architecture of the National Socialist regime, the building later became globally known during the Berlin Airlift and subsequently operated as a civilian airport until its closure in 2008. Today, the complex is protected as a national heritage site while simultaneously serving as a venue for cultural events, temporary uses, refugee accommodation, and public programs. These overlapping historical, political, and regulatory layers create fundamental challenges for its contemporary use and transformation.

Drawing on access to planning documents, and transformation guidelines, and interviews, this paper examines how the former Tempelhof Airport is continuously reshaped through practices typically classified as maintenance or repair. Fire safety regulations, climate conditioning requirements, and event infrastructure standards necessitate ongoing adjustments to the building. Rather than restoring a stable past state, these interventions enable new uses and redefine what the building can do.

The paper argues that, in the case of Tempelhof Airport, maintenance operates as a mode of construction. Architectural guidelines function as scripts for incremental transformations that allow the building to accommodate evolving regulatory and programmatic demands. By analyzing these processes, the paper conceptualizes Tempelhof as a layered socio-technical network whose present form emerges from accumulated cycles of repair, negotiation, and adaptation. In doing so, it contributes to STS discussions of repair and infrastructure by showing how large heritage buildings are continuously rebuilt through maintenance practices that shape their possible futures.