The architect, Meinhard von Gerkan, wrote a book about it, Black Box BER, back in 2013, after they were fired in 2012. It's a bit self-serving, unsurprisingly, but highlights some of the issues arising when you change plans mid-construction.
For example, an airport has very carefully designed zones: land-side and air-side (after security), Schengen and non-Schengen (after immigration), staff and non-staff, etc., that must be separated. It also has carefully considered passenger flow, escape routes, fire sprinklers and smoke vents, etc.
Then, after all is agreed and construction had started, the airport company requested much more space for retail. That's obviously going to lead to problems.
One thing I must say, though: I am glad that the officials responsible for fire safety are not afraid to deny certification. There was a fire at DUS (Düsseldorf Airport) in 1996 in which 17 people died. So, good job in standing up to the immense pressure.
The BBC article says that's a major problem, but actually puts a large part of the blame on Gerkan himself. (IDK whether justified on not.)
> One simple problem, bizarrely enough, was the airport architect, Meinhard von Gerkan's, dislike of shopping.
> Joel Dullroy, a Berlin-based journalist with Radio Spaetkauf, who produced a podcast telling this airport's story, says Mr Gerkan wrote disdainfully about passengers "dragging around unwanted bottles of whisky like a beggar" and wanted to have as few airport shops as possible.
> But when the airport company realised this - very late in the day - it insisted on adding whole new floors of shopping into the design, as the company now makes up to 50% of its revenue from retail.
No. That was not the problem. The problem was that they did not properly supervise the architect. Architects are artists. They always have some bias one way or another, some little opinion on how things should look or work. They need to be watched. It was someone's job to ensure that architect's "vision" matched the customer needs. That person should have realized the error and halted proceedings long before breaking ground on anything.
> The church staff drafted a blueprint for the replacement, calling for a long, rectangular shape to allow for natural lighting, with a curve in order to preserve an oak tree to the south of the church.
Sorry, I don't see how that story is relevant to your position.
An architect not delivering on some basic requirements is one thing, not necessarily because they are artists, because art will always only be a part of architecture. Delivering that is completely disconnected from it's use case is simply bad architecture.
Making a major change to a plan half way through is a good way to piss off any designer or engineer though. Especially one as massive and all-encompasing as a huge airport, railway, and hotel complex + retail shopping center. I'm curious how much that had to do with them dragging their feet, in a huff, out of ego or whatever. I doubt the architects simply 'hates' shopping, or maybe they do and didn't know that was a requirement before going in deep into a project.
But somewhere the communication broke down and relationships deteriorated.
I am a bit surprised that architects would have such a big involvement in such a project. You wouldn't hire an architect to design a factory production line or a freight terminal. An airport has much more common with a complex industrial site than a traditional building. And at this scale everything is an engineering challenge that needs a specialist to do properly.
If executed properly, sure, but nobody was realy in charge and the politicians (not chosen for their qualifications for the task) didn't know how to this (or to do at all).
Airports do have to be very carefully designed as you say. They are a complex set of interconnected facilities. But the upshot of this are dozens of different specialist teams who have conflicting interests. Communication is difficult and it is hard to maintain consistent state.
In an operational airport this complexity still exists and major airports are in a constant state of flux. They are always building something and there are always contractors on site doing construction or maintenance. The difference is that it can be treated as an incremental improvement. No one can pretend that the entire system will be optimal first time. Of course the requirements will evolve.
For example, an airport has very carefully designed zones: land-side and air-side (after security), Schengen and non-Schengen (after immigration), staff and non-staff, etc., that must be separated. It also has carefully considered passenger flow, escape routes, fire sprinklers and smoke vents, etc.
Then, after all is agreed and construction had started, the airport company requested much more space for retail. That's obviously going to lead to problems.
One thing I must say, though: I am glad that the officials responsible for fire safety are not afraid to deny certification. There was a fire at DUS (Düsseldorf Airport) in 1996 in which 17 people died. So, good job in standing up to the immense pressure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Düsseldorf_Airport#Düsseldorf_...