Tiergarten in Autumn

Spectacular autumnal colours in Berlin's Tiergarten on the afternoon of 12 October 2008. The Reichstag can be seen through the trees in the second and fourth images.











© Christopher Seddon 2008

Tempelhof Airport, Berlin

Opened in 1923, Tempelhof is one of the world's oldest airports still in operation and one of three airports in Berlin. It was completely reconstructed by the Nazis between 1936 and 1941 and at the time was one of the largest manmade structures on Earth. After the war the airport played a major role in the Berlin Airlift and the USAF operated from it throughout the Cold War, but its use declined thereafter. Sadly this historic airport's days are numbered and it is scheduled to close at the end of this month, the plan being that nearby Schonefeldt will be expanded and will eventually bcome Berlin's sole airport.





















© Christopher Seddon 2008

Berliner Fernsehturm

Located near Alexanderplatz in what was then East Berlin and constructed between 1965 and 1969, the Berliner Fernsehturm (TV Tower) is easily visible across the whole of Berlin, as its instigator, Walter Ulbricht presumably intended. Ironically, the design was based on a similar structure in Stuttgart, in the capitalist west!

The tower is featured in English artist Tacita Dean's 2001 work entitled 'Fernsehturm' and in 2006 the sphere was decorated as a football to mark Germany's hosting of the World Cup, a tournament that the Germans uncharacteristically failed to win.

The tower is shown framed between two stairwells of the now-demolished Palast der Republik, another icon of the former Communist regime.



© Christopher Seddon 2008