 | |
 The Berghain nightclub building (2022) | |
  Berghain Location within Berlin | |
| Address | Am Wriezener Bahnhof |
|---|---|
| Location | Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany |
| Coordinates | 52°30′40″N13°26′35″E / 52.51111°N 13.44306°E /52.51111; 13.44306 |
| Designation | Cultural institution |
| Type | Nightclub |
| Capacity | 1,500[1] |
| Opened | 2004; 21 years ago (2004) |
Berghain (German:[ˈbɛʁkhaɪn]) is anightclub inBerlin,Germany. It is named after its location near the border betweenKreuzberg andFriedrichshain, and is a short walk fromBerlin Ostbahnhof main line railway station.[2] Founded in 2004 by friends Norbert Thormann and Michael Teufele,[3] it has since become one of the world's most famous clubs and has been called the "world capital oftechno".[1][4]
Berghain's origins go back to the mid-1990s. Beginning in 1992,Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstraße was used forhardcore techno parties.[5] Thormann and Teufele hosted a male-onlyfetish club night called Snax.[6]Snax Club launched in 1994 with men-only events calledPervy Party.[7][8] One of the locations of Snax Club was Reichsbahnbunker in Mitte.[1] In 1995, Snax Club also came toVrieshuis Amerika inAmsterdam.[9]
After parties in Bunker ended in December 1996,[10] Snax Club found a steady location of its own, which opened in 1998 and was calledLab.oratory.[11] Thormann and Teufele were offered to rent a depot building next to the Lab.oratory.[12] This venue occupying a former railway repair depot in Friedrichshain becameOstgut.[13] Lab.oratory hosted regular gay events, but "on certain nights of the month" Ostgut and Lab.oratory were combined into one space for Snax.[11] Unless a Snax event took place, Ostgut was open to the general public.
Despite being inclusive to all genders, Ostgut remained predominantly gay. It was a unique intersection between techno music and gay sex: "The main bar was located behind the dance floor – as well as the darkrooms, more or less to the irritation of the party people from Mitte. In Mitte’s techno clubs, gay lifestyle played only a marginal role. And vice versa: Most gay clubs didn’t care much about modern club music."[12] Two years after the Ostgut launch, the same team opened another space in the same building, this was namedPanorama Bar.[12] All three spaces together had the address Mühlenstraße 26–30.[14]
According toDeutsche Welle, Ostgut, "known for unique parties and boundless freedoms, sexual and otherwise, is considered to have paved the way for Berghain".[15] "It remains Teufele’s and Thormann’s ultimate secret how they persuaded (or seduced) the gay crowd to dance to modern club music."[12] Ostgut closed in January 2003, with the building slated for demolition and later replaced by a large indoor arena, theO2 World Berlin.[3]
Berghain opened in 2004 as a reincarnation of Ostgut.[11][16] Panorama Bar opened in October 2004,[11] the main space Berghain in December of the same year.[15] A new Lab.oratory opened in 2005.[17] The name "Berghain" is aportmanteau of the two city quarters that flank the south and north sides of the building,Kreuzberg (formerly inWest Berlin) andFriedrichshain (formerly inEast Berlin), and has been described as evocative of the club's "post-1989 identity".[6] The literal meaning of the German wordBerghain is "mountaingrove".
The club is located in the formerFriedrichshain Combined Heat and Power Plant built in 1953 as part of the flagship post-warStalinallee development[6] and abandoned in the 1980s.[1] The space was originally rented from the energy companyVattenfall[18] but has been owned outright by the club since 2011.[19] The building has a cavernous main room with 18-meter ceilings and is dominated by steel and concrete. The design of the club's interior, as well as later interior and exterior expansions of the venue, were carried out by the Berlin design firmStudio Karhard.[20]
In 2016, a German court officially designated Berghain a cultural institution, which allows the club to pay a reduced tax rate.[21]
The club's main room is focused on techno, with a smaller upstairs space, Panorama Bar, featuringhouse music.[4][22] An outdoor garden opens between late spring and early autumn to host daytime DJ sets.[23][24]
Berghain has aFunktion-One sound system on its main dance floor. Its first iteration, called the Dance Stack, was installed in 2005 and was one of the company's largest club installs.[25] The Dance Stack was replaced with a new, updated Funktion-One system in 2023.[26] The Panorama Bar system was upgraded in 2017 with a four-point line-array system with an additional six subwoofers from Studt Akustik.[27]
At the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic in Germany, in March 2020, Berghain closed along with all other nightclubs in Berlin.[28] Over the summer, it hosted several sound art installations inside the building and garden.[29] In September 2020, the indoors club reopened as an art space, hosting an exhibition titled "Studio Berlin" featuring 115 Berlin-based artists includingTacita Dean,Olafur Eliasson andWolfgang Tillmans.[30][31][32] In October 2021, 19 months after shuttering, Berghain resumed indoor dance club events. Patrons are required either to be vaccinated against or to have recovered from COVID-19.[15]
The basement holds a male-only establishment called "Lab.oratory", whichRolling Stone described in 2014 as being "known as Berlin’s most extremesex club."[1] For Snax parties, Lab.oratory and Berghain are combined into a single venue. This is in tradition with the old Snax at Ostgut in Mühlenstraße, but takes place less frequently.
Berghain has become associated withdecadence andhedonism. It is open continuously most weekends from Saturday night through late Monday morning.[33] The club offersdark rooms dedicated to sexual activity, and media have frequently reported on guests openly indulging in sexual acts.[34] In 2019Frieze magazine observed that in Berghain's early years, "the main room was mostly a space forgay men, [...] and now itsqueer palette is more mixed [however] the club’s values remain the same: concealment, queerness and excess".[6] The twice-yearly Snax Party is reserved for gay patrons only.[35]
No photos are allowed to be taken inside the club, and patrons are required to cover their smartphone cameras with a sticker.[3] This policy was also maintained in 2020 when the club temporarily converted into an art space for the "Studio Berlin" exhibition during the COVID-19 pandemic.[30] Additionally, the toilets of the club have no mirrors, purportedly so the club's guests are spared the "buzzkilling indignity of seeing their own faces after an epic partying session".[1][4]
A 2022 academic study described Berghain as a unique "pharmacolibidinal constellation", where existing sexual orientations may become porous, as well as preexisting behaviors altered, due to the environment.[36][37]
The club's door policy is notorious for being both strict and opaque,[38] generating frequent debate and speculation.[39][40][41] The club's bouncers have also been accused of racism.[21][42] The head bouncerSven Marquardt [de], who is a photographer, is also a minor celebrity in the techno scene.[43]
In 2005, Berghain's owners started a record label,Ostgut Ton,[4][44] conceived by former Ostgut resident DJ Nick Höppner after Ostgut's closure in 2003.[45] Its first releases were by Berghain/Panorama Bar DJ residents such asMarcel Dettmann, Cassy andBen Klock. The label's music is mostlytechno,tech house,Detroit techno andminimal techno.
In 2007, Berghain collaborated with theBerlin State Ballet to createShut Up and Dance! Updated, a ballet for five dancers that was performed at the club in late June and early July that year.[46][47] The ballet's soundtrack, released on Ostgut Ton on May 29, 2007,[47] is made up of five specially composed tracks by prominent minimal techno artists, such asLuciano,Âme, Sleeparchive andLuke Slater (The 7th Plain).[48] The soundtrack received some positive reviews,[44][49][50] while the ballet was less well received.[51]
In October 2010, the label released a five-year anniversary compilation,Fünf, for which field recordings from within the club were used. Nick Höppner explained that the idea had come from his collaboratorEmika on "a regular Sunday morning [at Berghain, where] she noticed how everything in the building was resonating and vibrating and swinging and humming–she realized that there were a lot of sounds coming from the building itself. That led to the idea of doing field recordings within the building while it's not open to the public."[45]
In the same 2010 interview, Höppner stated that Ostgut Ton was turning down many recordings because there are "so many in-house artists", while the label at that time was selling more product than other labels, but not generating much profit.[45]
Ostgut Ton closed in December 2021, having been (according toResident Advisor) "a dominant force in dance music, beloved for its mix series and dozens of EPs, albums and compilations" for 16 years.[52]
In 2021, ARTE Concerts produced a series of three videos at the Berghain and released it on YouTube.[53]
Around 2007, Berghain also launched its own booking agency Ostgut Booking, which among other artists represented Ben Klock, Steffi, and Marcel Dettmann.[52] In October 2022, it was announced that Ostgut Booking (which at the time represented 28 acts and had eight employees) would be closing down at the end of the year.[52]
Berghain first enteredDJ Magazine's Top 100 Clubs list in 2008, ranking 20th, and reached the top position the next year.[54]
| Year | Position | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 20 | New Entry | [55] |
| 2009 | 1 | — | [56] |
| 2010 | 8 | — | [57] |
| 2011 | 6 | — | [58] |
| 2012 | 13 | — | [59] |
| 2013 | 18 | — | [60] |
| 2014 | 14 | — | [61] |
| 2015 | 13 | — | [62] |
| 2016 | 16 | — | [63] |
| 2017 | 12 | — | [64] |
| 2018 | 10 | — | [65] |
| 2019 | 10 | — | [66] |
| 2020 | 8 | — | [67] |
| 2021 | 6 | — | [68] |
| 2022 | 12 | — | [69] |
| 2023 | 16 | — | [70] |
| 2024 | 13 | — | [71] |
| Year | Category | Work | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Best Global Club | Berghain - Berlin, Germany | Nominated | [72] |
| 2012 | Nominated | [73] | ||
| 2013 | Nominated | [74] | ||
| 2014 | Nominated | [75] | ||
| 2015 | Nominated | [76] | ||
| 2016 | Nominated | [77] | ||
| 2020 | Nominated | [78] |
The club's roots ran deep into the Berlin subculture that developed after the fall of the Wall in 1989. Its owners, Michael Teufele and Norbert Thormann, organised first their Snax sex parties in the nineties at the Bunker club, an abandoned World War Two air-raid shelter occupied by ravers in 1992 and run as a hardcore outpost for acid techno, gabba and BDSM parties, amongst other niche predilections, until it was raided and shuttered in 1996. Two years later, Teufele and Thormann founded Ostgut in an old railway depot in the Friedrichshein [sic!] district, which at the time was a drab and desolate sector of what had been East Berlin. [...] The revolution was over – or was it? 'It was the end of the nineties, techno was out of fashion, but Ostgut was a place where people were still doing Ecstasy and having a great time, with parties going on until the afternoon,' Schneider recalls.
PERVY PARTY · Sat. 16.07.94 · Start 11 pm, End ?! am · Bunker Albrechtstr. 24/25 Berlin-Mitte [...] Rubber? Leather? You can change into whatever turns you on. SNAX CLUB is a new concept in fetish trading for pervy men.
Den berlinska klubben Snax gör ett gästspel i Amsterdam den 25 november. Vid vattnet, pà Vrieshuis Amerika, Oostelijke Handelskade 25 arrangeras ,Whipping Boys'-festen. Dj Mickey V (Amsterdam) och Dokker [sic!] Daan (Berlin), vilket i Snaxandan bör betyda techno. [...] Snax klubb är ingen läderklubb. Här blandas läderkillarna med technokids, gummiklädda, gay skinheads och allmänt partyglada män. Snax innebär dans, sex och glada miner.
Noch vor der offiziellen Schließung des Techno-Bunkers hat das Bauaufsichtsamt das denkmalgeschützte Gebäude in der Albrechtstraße gestern gesperrt. Damit fallen die für dieses Wochenende im Bunker geplanten Abschiedsparties aus. Wie die Polizei mitteilte, wurde der Bunker aufgrund einer Nutzungsuntersagung geschlossen.[Even before the official closure of the Techno Bunker, the Building Supervisory Authority closed off the heritage site on Albrechtstraße yesterday. This means that the farewell parties planned for this weekend in the bunker have been cancelled. As the police announced, the bunker was closed due to a ban on use.]
The Panorama Bar, which is the smaller upper portion of the legendary techno club Ostgut, has re-opened on Friday, October 15, at its new address in the Friedrichshain area of East Berlin. [...] Ostgut was the epicenter of Berlin nightlife starting late 1998 [...]. On certain nights of the month, Laboratory was the location for the famed Snax parties, with special themes for the insatiable gay appetites of Berlin
At first, nobody knew who owned Ostgut. Michael Teufele and Norbert Thormann ran the lab.oratory, a gay sex club. The idea to open a dance club came up when they were offered to rent more space. [...] The Panoramabar opened two years later. It was accessible through a huge staircase after having passing the wardrobe. [...] The Panoramabar was more digestible for partygoers who did not relate to gay partying. There were more or less as many women as men, and the range of music was wider.
Ostgut, Berghain's precursor, began as an itinerant gay fetish event called ,Snax,' which eventually found a permanent home at Ostgut in 1998
Berlin's Berghain club is known for many things: its hardcore opening hours (starting from Saturday it stays open until Monday noon), its DJs (who play some of the best techno in Europe), and its relaxed attitude towards sex in public (walk past the booths on the ground floor and you're sure to see a bare bottom or 10).
52°30′40″N13°26′35″E / 52.51111°N 13.44306°E /52.51111; 13.44306
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