“I think it’s terrible,” said Yaver Karablut, a frequent flier who far prefers Tegel, the airport in the former West Berlin scheduled to close when the new one opens. With a sigh, Mr. Karablut ticked off the reasons: Tegel is easier to get to and to navigate. “I really think it’s a shame,” he said.
Designed in 1965 according to the short-lived “drive to your gate” concept, Tegel’s narrow building is shaped like a hexagon. Cars can travel along the inner sides, and airplanes dock along the outer sides. Each gate has its own yellow fiberglass check-in counter, so taxi and airplane are separated by about 100 feet.
[WS:] Tegel is a funny airport - quite minimalist for the capital of a major European power. In that respect, it it reminiscent of Bonn - a sleepy provincial town that used to be the the capital of the Federal Republic (prior to the unification.) Both Tegel and Bonn create an illusion of visiting Disneyland - where structures are scaled down to create a sense of gemuetlichkeit - yet they are fully functional real-life places, not theme parks created for entertainment.
Read more at http://wsokol.blogspot.com/2012/04/auf-wiedersehen-tegel.html
Wojtek