Berghain

The sign for Ostgut

Thormann and Teufele became party promoters in the 1990s, hosting a male-only fetish club night called Snax at various clubs around Berlin. In 1999 they founded their first club, Ostgut, in a former railway repair depot in Friedrichshain. Unlike Snax, the club was open to the general public. According to Deutsche Welle, Ostgut, "known for unique parties and boundless freedoms, sexual and otherwise, is considered to have paved the way for Berghain."[5] Ostgut closed in January 2003, with the building slated for demolition and later replaced by a large indoor arena, the O₂ World Berlin (since 2015: Mercedes-Benz Arena).[2]

Berghain opened in 2004 as a reincarnation of Ostgut.[6][7] The name is a portmanteau of the two city quarters that flank the south and north sides of the building: Kreuzberg (formerly in West Berlin) and Friedrichshain (formerly in East Berlin). The literal meaning of the German word Berghain is "mountain grove."

The club is in a former power plant built in 1953 and abandoned in the 1980s.[3] The space was originally rented from the energy company Vattenfall[8] but has been owned outright by the club since 2011.[9] The building is remarkable for its enormous dimensions, with 18-meter ceilings on the main dancefloor. The interior's minimalist design is dominated by steel and concrete. Only half the building is in use.[4]

In 2016, a German court officially designated Berghain a cultural institution, which allows the club to pay a reduced tax rate.[10]

The club's main room is focused on techno, with a smaller upstairs space, Panorama Bar, featuring house.[4][11] The basement holds a male-only sex club called Lab.Oratory.[12]

Berghain has a Funktion-One sound system on its main dance floor which, when it was installed in 2004, was one of the company's largest club installs.[13] At its launch, the sound system comprised four Funktion-One Dance Stacks (consisting of a DS210, a DS215 and three F218), a Double Infrahorn (consisting of two Infrabass, one Doublehorn Extension) and two Resolution 2 for monitoring.[14] The Panorama Bar was upgraded in 2007 with a four-point line-array system with an additional six subwoofers from Studt Akustik.[15]

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, in March 2020, Berghain closed along with all other nightclubs in Berlin.[16] Over the summer, it hosted several sound art installations inside the building and the adjacent beer garden.[17] In September 2020, the indoors club reopened as an art space, hosting an exhibition titled "Studio Berlin" featuring 115 Berlin-based artists including Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson and Wolfgang Tillmans.[18][19][20] After 19 months, in October 2021, Berghain resumed indoor dance club events, with patrons still required to either be vaccinated or to have recovered from COVID-19.[5]

Berghain has become associated with decadence and hedonism. It is open continuously most weekends from Saturday night through late Monday morning.[21] Patrons openly engage in sexual acts on the dance floor, as well as in dark rooms specifically set aside for such activity.[22] Like Ostgut, the club focuses on the gay community but is open to all, save for the twice-yearly Snax.[23]

No photos are allowed inside the club, with patrons required to cover their smartphone cameras with a sticker.[2] The policy was maintained when the club converted into an art space for the "Studio Berlin" exhibition.[18] Because drugs are commonly used in the club, there are no mirrors or other reflective surfaces, so that guests are spared the "buzzkilling indignity of seeing their own faces after an epic partying session."[3][4]

The club's door policy is notorious for being both strict and opaque,[24] generating occasional accusations of racism[10][25][26] and frequent debate and speculation about how to get in.[27][28][29] Head bouncer Sven Marquardt, who is also a photographer, is a minor celebrity in the techno scene.[2][30]

Panorama Bar resident Cassy

In 2005, Berghain's owners started a record label, Ostgut Ton,[4][31] conceived by former Ostgut resident DJ Nick Höppner after Ostgut's closure in 2003.[32] Its first releases were by Berghain/Panorama Bar DJ residents such as Marcel Dettmann, Cassy and Ben Klock. The label's music is mostly techno, tech house, Detroit techno and minimal techno.

In 2007, Berghain collaborated with the Berlin State Ballet to create Shut Up and Dance! Updated, a ballet for five dancers that was performed at the club in late June and early July that year.[33][34] The ballet's soundtrack, released on Ostgut Ton on May 29, 2007,[34] is made up of five specially composed tracks by prominent minimal techno artists, such as Luciano, Âme, Sleeparchive and Luke Slater (The 7th Plain).[35] The soundtrack received some positive reviews,[31][36][37] while the ballet was less well received.[38]

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 collaborator Emika on "a regular Sunday morning [to 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 ... It took about two or three weeks ... It was a four gigabyte library".[32]

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. Asked about his five-year outlook for the label, Höppner said, "Everyone has his tastes and a very high standard of quality. Just maintaining this level of quality is our ambition, I guess. Keep it interesting, and whatever that might actually mean remains to be seen."[32]

In 2021 ARTE Concerts produced a series of three videos at the Berghain and released it on YouTube.[39]

• In the TV series Sense8 one of the characters, Riley Gunnarsdóttir, played by Tuppence Middleton, is admired for a recording of a DJ set she made in Berghain.
• In 2016, American comedian Conan O'Brien attempted to gain admission to Berghain while filming a travel episode of his television show Conan, but was denied and asked to leave due to the presence of his camera crew.
• In 2017, the card game Bergnein was released, a satirical card game where the goal is to "Let the right people in, outshine your colleagues and win the game!"[61]

• List of electronic dance music venues
• Superclub

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Berghain.

• Official website
• Ostgut Ton official website
• Ostgut Ton at Discogs
• Clubguideberlin about Berghain
• BERGHAIN - Der Club in Berlin | Portrait & History