Nowhere else in Berlin does the term “freedom” feel as tangible and real as it does in Tempelhof. Over the years, this site has become a powerful symbol—shaped and challenged by history. In 1948, after the Soviet Union cut off West Berlin by land and water, American and British planes touched down here at ever-shorter intervals, delivering vital supplies to more than two million people during the nearly eleven-month blockade. The Berlin Airlift wasn’t just an idea of freedom. It was freedom in action—tons of coal and flour brought in by air because the roads were blockaded. Walking across Tempelhof Field today, you’re stepping onto ground where a city’s freedom was once decided in the most literal sense.
Yet Tempelhof’s transformation into such a symbol stands as one of German history’s great contradictions. The monumental airport building was begun by the Nazis in 1936; the site hosted arms production and forced labor. Columbiahaus, at the edge of the field, was once a concentration camp. What started as an expression of Nazi power architecture became—just a few years later—one of the most powerful symbols of Western freedom.
This week, Hangars 5 and 6 are hosting the booths at the POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair: 96 galleries from 20 countries—with a special focus on Turkey this year—and artworks for sale set against white exhibition walls and interspersed with beverage stands. One could dismiss this as merely a matter of location: a large space, a prime address—that’s it. Or one could see it as yet another example of this venue’s astonishing adaptability.
For Tempelhof doesn’t just tell the story of what freedom once was. It also tells the story of how difficult it is for us to understand freedom as something that can change.
After the airport closed in 2008, the Berlin Senate wanted to develop parts of the Tempelhof Field along its edges. The plans called for around 4,700 apartments, along with commercial space, social infrastructure, and a new Central and State Library. The vast majority of the field was to remain open. In 2014, however, Berliners voted against the plans in a referendum. 64.3 percent voted in favor of the bill proposed by the “100% Tempelhofer Feld” initiative. The Tempelhofer Feld Act enshrined the extensive preservation of the open space.
One could celebrate this as a second moment of freedom: the same city that stood its ground against an external blockade in 1948 defied its own administration in 2014. The citizens decided for themselves what should happen to one of their city’s most valuable public spaces.
Twelve years later, however, it is worth asking a different question. Not whether the referendum back then was legitimate—of course it was. But rather, what claim democratic decisions may have in the long term.
Berlin in 2026 is not Berlin in 2014. The city has become more expensive, housing is scarcer, and pressure on the real estate market is greater. A decision made under the conditions of 2014 is therefore not necessarily the right one under the conditions of 2026.
The Tempelhofer Feld Act is by no means legally set in stone for all time. It has already been amended, and Berlin’s politicians have long since resumed discussions about the possibility of cautious development along the perimeter. The real issue, then, lies less in the law itself than in its continuing symbolic significance as an embodiment of popular sovereignty and democratic participation. The 2014 referendum, in particular, transcends its function as a legal mechanism; it has become a touchstone for the public’s shared identity and collective agency regarding the stewardship of urban space. As a result, the referendum occupies a powerful place in civic memory, often viewed as a moment when citizens asserted decisive control in opposition to top-down governance. This symbolic weight endows the law with an almost sacrosanct status, so that even the mere suggestion of revisiting or amending the decision is interpreted by many as a challenge to the legitimacy of that collective expression of the popular will.
But isn’t the very possibility of revision a defining feature of freedom?
After all, democracy isn’t just about being allowed to make decisions. It’s also about being able to correct them later. A referendum is a snapshot of the political will—not a revelation. People change their views, cities change their needs, and societal priorities shift. What once seemed right may once again be up for debate.
That is not a weakness of democracy. It is its strength.
Photography by Dominik Friess (2025), Courtesy of POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair.
Things get interesting when you look from here toward the POSITIONS exhibition in the neighboring hangars. Not because an area protected by a referendum is being used for commercial purposes here of all places—that would be geographically and legally incorrect. The airport building and Tempelhofer Feld are two distinct spaces, and the hangars have hosted trade shows, sports, culture, and events for years.
What’s interesting, rather, is the different approaches to change.
An art fair moves into a historic building for four days. It transforms the space without permanently occupying it. Galleries arrive, artworks are displayed and sold, and visitors walk through the former aircraft hangars. Afterward, the walls are taken down, the paintings are packed up, and the hangars can become something else.
None of this is permanent.
Perhaps this illustrates a more compelling conception of freedom than the indefinite preservation of an existing state of affairs. The temporary transformation of Tempelhof’s hangars during the art fair demonstrates that freedom is not about defaulting to market logic or indiscriminately developing every available space. Rather, freedom is revealed in the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and revisit prior decisions. Tempelhof’s ability to support different uses over time shows how embracing change, rather than insisting on either permanence or unchecked development, embodies a dynamic and responsive understanding of freedom.
The decisive category is not market versus democracy, but reversibility versus permanence.
Cities, in particular, need this reversibility. They are not monuments to their own past, but living organisms. They grow, shrink, change their functions, and must respond to conditions that no one could have fully foreseen ten or twenty years earlier.
Tempelhof itself is the best proof of this. Nazi representational architecture, a military armaments site, an airport, the lifeline of West Berlin, a recreational area, refugee housing, an event venue, an art fair—hardly any other place in Berlin has taken on so many different meanings within a single century.
Why, of all places, should its future be final?
At the end of Berlin Art Week, the booths are taken down, and the paintings are packed up. The hangars will wait for their next use. Outside, Tempelhofer Feld remains one of Europe’s largest inner-city open spaces—an extraordinary public space and, at the same time, an area whose future use will continue to be debated in a city with an acute housing shortage.
Not every dispute needs a final answer.
True freedom may not lie in defending the same decision over and over again. Rather, it lies in being allowed to reconsider a decision made yesterday morning. In 1948, Tempelhof was a place where freedom meant not yielding to a blockade. In 2014, freedom meant being able to contradict a government. And in 2026, freedom there might mean something much less spectacular: a city’s ability to reexamine its own decisions.
The art fair in the hangars won’t solve Berlin’s housing shortage. But for four days, it shows how naturally a historic place can change without losing its history.
That, in the end, may be the kind of freedom Tempelhof needs today.