Techno, sex and counterculture: this is the legendary Berlin club Berghain that gave its name to the new single Rosalía

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a cultural revolution fueled by a generation of freedom-hungry young people took over the newly unified German capital and adopted techno music as its soundtrack.

Berlin at that time was marked by the Old Wall and the east of the city was undergoing a major post-Soviet transformation.

“It was very bad,” recalls Matthias Pasderny, a professor of musicology at Berlin University of the Arts who specializes in the history of techno. “It seemed as if World War II had just ended.”

“There were many parts of the city completely destroyed or under construction,” he says in an interview with BBC Mundo. “People moved to Berlin just for fun, because everything was so cheap.”

Many abandoned or invaded buildings from the Communist era were soon converted into temples Ravers They danced to the rhythm of techno music in parties that lasted for several days.

The Berghain we know today, whose name is an abbreviation of Ben CruzBerg And FriedrichEasy (The area where it is located in Berlin is called Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg) It was born in 2004, but its history goes back to the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution that we talked about previously.

In the mid-1990s, Berghain’s founders began opening nightclubs that changed their name and location.

“They opened clubs or party places in Berlin for the gay subculture, which had a strong connection with techno music and were mostly run by people from the ancient East,” Pasderny says.

These festivals laid the foundation for the founding of Berghain.

He continues, “At first it was just a party in a certain place. They had to change clubs several times, but then they decided to create their own club.”

In 1998 Ostgut was born, which became the Berghain we know today in 2004.

This legendary nightclub is headquartered in a former East German power station, located just a few meters from the main train station of former East Berlin.

As a musicologist, Matthias Pasderny emphasizes that since its opening, Berghain has been – and stresses that it must continue to be – a temple where music is the most important thing and everything revolves around it.

“It’s a place really dedicated to music, focused exclusively on it. It’s like a techno orchestra,” he says.

“It has a great sound system. The architecture, infrastructure and design of the building have been designed so that one can fully focus on the music.”

Every weekend, the DJs who have the good fortune to play in Bergen deliver marathon sessions that last until Monday afternoon.

On the main dance floor – once a power plant’s turbine room – groups of increasingly sweaty revelers dance incessantly and indistinguishably between night and day due to the gloom interrupted only by bright lights that also move to the beat of the music.

Elsewhere in the building, in the spaces designated for sex, more intimate encounters take place under a motto that most follow: “What happens in Berghain stays in Berghain.”

In addition to being a musicologist, Matthias Pasderny also describes himself as a feeder Have been to Berghain on multiple occasions.

“My experience as… feeder “It’s that Berghain is a place you enter and you never know how you’re going to get out, in what state of mind or how long you’re going to stay.”

“Even when you get out, you don’t know how long you were there. Was it just a few hours or a couple of days? It’s like going into another world, a world with completely different rules, where your senses also work differently than they do in everyday life.”

It goes without saying that many revelers turn to drugs to keep their bodies active until dawn (or from midnight on Saturday to noon on Monday in some cases).

The only thing not allowed in Bergen is photography. Those allowed access cover their phone cameras with stickers.

But there are a few lucky ones who make it to this step.

Berghain maintains a very strict access policy which has undoubtedly helped cement its reputation as “one of the best nightclubs in the world”.

Sven Marquardt is the goalkeeper responsible for deciding who enters the legendary club.

He has worked at the club since its founding in 1998, when he was appointed to work in the first edition of the club, Ostgut.

In an interview with the BBC in 2017, Marquardt said he lived in Berlin in the 1990s like many Berliners at the time.

“I started going to techno parties in old abandoned factories. We would dance all night without sleeping. For me, this freedom was a new experience,” he said.

In addition to having a good time, he also had to make a living somehow, and his brother, who was working as a DJ and mixer in several popular clubs in the capital, suggested that he get a job as a bouncer.

“I would describe Berghain as a party place, where international artists can perform their music on its different floors.”

“It is a place where you can forget time and place. It is also a place of tolerance and acceptance, but above all of celebration.”

Sven Marquardt told the BBC that his role as a goalkeeper was to ensure that people were able to celebrate their freedom, their way of life and their feelings in peace.

He added that as Berghain’s concierge, he had to make sure he could offer that to customers.

“People always want to know how do I get them to let me in?” It’s hard to answer. “Because I’m also a photographer, I think I look at people and sometimes I don’t have enough time to make a decision,” he explained.

“I notice that. For me, it’s about finding the contradictions in the people who come in. The contradictions, the antagonisms, the extremes. That’s pretty much it.”

“The important thing is that Berghain is made by and for the people who come to party here.”

“It didn’t matter, or for a long time it didn’t matter, what people looked like, or what they wore, or how they danced,” recalls musicologist and club member Matthias Pasderny. “Music was the basis of everything.”

He regretted that this had changed little in recent years.

“Especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become more like a catwalk,” he says.

Popular Berlin clubs were forced to close their doors during the Covid-19 pandemic. Berghain was no exception and had to reinvent himself for a while.

The nightclub famously relaxed its famously strict access policy for art lovers in the summer of 2020 and transformed into an art gallery.

Thousands of visitors were able to take guided tours of the 3,500 square meter club, including the dance floor and the legendary Panorama Bar.

Pasderni believes that the strict access policy and ban on taking photos helped build a great brand.

“The people behind Berghain have developed a clear concept from the beginning. When you go there you realize that everything is very professionally organized, but it still feels like an alternative club and underground“He explains.

“It has become a very unique and valuable brand, so it really needs to be protected,” he adds.

In March 2024, Germany took a step to protect clubs like Berghain by adding Berlin’s techno music scene to the country’s National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

This is an important milestone for an industry in major crisis.

In November last year, Clubcommission, a non-profit organisation, published a report warning that almost half of the city’s 250 clubs were at risk of closing by 2025 due to rapidly rising rents, gentrification and changing demographics in Berlin.

However, Berghain’s reputation is such that, for now, he seems immune to this crisis. Every Saturday night, the lines to get in remain just as long.

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