Berghain

Berghain's origins go back to the mid-1990s. Beginning in 1992, Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstraße was used for hardcore techno parties. Thormann and Teufele hosted a male-only fetish club night called Snax. One of the locations of Snax Club was Reichsbahnbunker in Mitte. After parties in Bunker ended in December 1996, Snax Club found a steady location of its own, which opened in 1998 and was called Lab.oratory. Thormann and Teufele were offered a depot building to rent next to the Lab.oratory. This venue occupying a former railway repair depot in Friedrichshain became Ostgut. Lab.oratory hosted regular gay events, but "on certain nights of the month" Ostgut and Lab.oratory were combined into one space for Snax. 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." According to Deutsche Welle, Ostgut, "known for unique parties and boundless freedoms, sexual and otherwise, is considered to have paved the way for Berghain". "It remains Teufele’s and Thormann’s ultimate secret how they persuaded (or seduced) the gay crowd to dance to modern club music." Panorama Bar opened in October 2004, The name "Berghain" 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), and has been described as evocative of the club's "post-1989 identity". and abandoned in the 1980s. but has been owned outright by the club since 2011. 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 firm Studio Karhard. In 2016, a German court officially designated Berghain a cultural institution, which allows the club to pay a reduced tax rate. ==Nightclub==

The club's main room is focused on techno, with a smaller upstairs space, Panorama Bar, featuring house music. An outdoor garden opens between late spring and early autumn to host daytime DJ sets. Berghain has a Funktion-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. The Dance Stack was replaced with a new, updated Funktion-One system in 2023. The Panorama Bar system was upgraded in 2017 with a four-point line-array system with an additional six subwoofers from Studt Akustik. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, in March 2020, Berghain closed, along with all other nightclubs in Berlin. Over the summer, it hosted several sound art installations inside the building and garden. 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. 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. == Lab.oratory ==

The basement holds a male-only establishment called "Lab.oratory", which Rolling Stone described in 2014 as being "known as Berlin’s most extreme sex club." 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. ==Culture==

Berghain has become associated with decadence and hedonism. It is open continuously most weekends from Saturday night through late Monday morning. The club offers dark rooms dedicated to sexual activity, and media have frequently reported on guests openly indulging in sexual acts. In 2019 Frieze magazine observed that in Berghain's early years, "the main room was mostly a space for gay men, [...] and now its queer palette is more mixed [however] the club’s values remain the same: concealment, queerness and excess". No photos are allowed to be taken inside the club, and patrons are required to cover their smartphone cameras with a sticker. The club's door policy is notorious for being both strict and opaque, generating frequent debate and speculation. The club's bouncers have also been accused of racism. The head bouncer , who is a photographer, is also a minor celebrity in the techno scene. == Controversies and criticism ==

Berghain has, at times, been the focal point of controversy surrounding drug use in the club and consequential health emergencies. A 30-year-old American woman died in June 2017, shortly after she left Berghain, having taken ecstasy that she had supposedly purchased inside the club. While visiting Berlin, she, her husband, and their Dutch friend decided to visit the club late one night. She had her own MDMA pill taken by security, according to Der Spiegel, and therefore bought two additional pills in the restroom of the club. After the effects of the pills started, where the woman showed signs of medical distress—by foaming from the mouth and losing consciousness—another person in the club, along with the club staff, allegedly delayed calling medical services, under the impression that the effects would wear off. After another fifteen minutes or so, an ambulance was called, and she was rushed to the hospital; however, she died shortly after arrival. A toxicology report revealed that the MDMA dosage she consumed was substantially greater than what is considered a standard recreational amount. This incident prompted extensive discussions within German media regarding the safety protocols associated with drug use in Berlin's nightlife, encompassing appeals for the implementation of on-site drug-checking services and enhanced emergency procedures. In 2019, there were unconfirmed reports of three individuals dying in a single night at Berghain after consuming pills that were marketed as ecstasy. Moreover, in 2022, incidents of needle spiking were encountered by clubbers at Berghain, where individuals were injected with unidentified drugs without their consent. Although these incidents have not been formally verified, they have helped fuel ongoing discussions regarding drug safety in nightclub settings. In spite of pressure from publicly documented cases of overdose, clubs such as Berghain have resisted introducing harm-reduction policies, including drug-checking, on the grounds of legal ambiguity and in order to maintain their low-interventionist policy. This has generated controversy among public health proponents, some of whom maintain that preventive measures could be taken to minimize health risks without undermining the cultural identity of the club. The German courts' official acknowledgment of the club as a cultural institution has raised additional concerns about state accountability and responsibility for public health and safety. Alongside drug scandals, Berghain has also had political scandals. In 2018, AfD politician Sibylle Schmidt called for the closure of the club in a motion. Her justification followed the AfD's overall far-right-leaning rhetoric, citing the drug use and oversexualized atmosphere. ==Record label and booking agency==

In 2005, Berghain's owners started a record label, Ostgut Ton, The ballet's soundtrack, released on Ostgut Ton on May 29, 2007, The soundtrack received some positive reviews, while the ballet was less well received. 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 [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." 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. In 2021, ARTE Concerts produced a series of three videos at the Berghain and released it on YouTube. Around 2007, Berghain also launched its own booking agency Ostgut Booking, which among other artists represented Ben Klock, Steffi, and Marcel Dettmann. 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. ==Recognition==

DJ Magazine's top 100 Clubs Berghain first entered ''DJ Magazine's'' Top 100 Clubs list in 2008, ranking 20th, and reached the top position the next year. Position by year ===International Dance Music Awards=== ==In popular culture==

• In 2013, American pop star Lady Gaga hosted an event at Berghain promoting her techno-inspired album, Artpop • 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, even after he asked if he could enter without 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!" • In 2021, DJ Mag suspected that "a number of Berlin clubs have inspired Hitman IIIs new night time venue: Club Hölle", a virtual in-game nightclub, including "Berghain, Kraftwerk and Griessmüehle". • The electro song "Ostbahnhof" by the French producers Miss Kittin and The Hacker, released in 2022, describes a night spent at Berghain without naming the club. • In 2023, the film John Wick: Chapter 4 features John Wick visiting a fictional club in Berlin named "Himmel und Hölle", which also features a cameo appearance by Berghain bouncer Sven Marquardt. • The song "Berliner Luft" by German band Scooter, released in 2023, mentions Berghain along with other Berlin clubs. ==See also==