Even Elon Musk was ‘turned away at the door’, the club said to be the hardest to enter in the world···Might it become a ‘cultural facility’ rather than ‘entertainment’ [Cyworld] - 경향신문

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When you hear ‘club’, what comes to mind?

Many people likely first picture darker images such as alcohol, drugs, and sex crimes.

But clubs in Germany are a bit different. The German government is pushing a legal revision to remove nightclubs from the category of entertainment businesses such as brothels and casinos and to reclassify them as ‘cultural facilities’.

Recently, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s cabinet approved a related amendment to the building code. Parliamentary procedures remain, but with support across party lines, the outlook is that it is highly likely to pass. Germany’s club industry is welcoming the move as a “historic turning point”.

The interior of the techno club ‘://about blank’ located in Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany. Screenshot from the ://about blank Instagram account

In Germanyespecially in the capital, Berlinclubs are not merely entertainment venues.

A prime example is the world-famous techno club ‘Berghain’. It is renowned as “the hardest club to get into in the world.” There is even an anecdote that Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk was refused entry.

Even if you wait for hours in line outside Berghain, entry is not guaranteed. Online, various tips circulate such as “Do not smile”, “Do not chat loudly with friends while in line”, “Do not look like a tourist”, and “Do not overdress”. There is even a simulation game that lets you experience the door selection process.

Sven Marquardt, the ‘gatekeeper’ who decides whether you get in at Berghain, is regarded as a symbolic figure of Berlin’s underground culture. Also a photographer, he is known to value sincerity toward music and culture more than appearances.

Photographer Sven Marquardt attends the Patrick Mohr show during the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2014 at Modehaus Jandorf in Berlin, Germany. Getty Images/Imazins

You might wonder, “Why make such a fuss about a single club?”

However, Germany’s club culture is viewed not merely as nightlife but as part of the city’s identity.

In the 1960s and 1970s, amid student and antiwar movements, demand grew among Germany’s young generation for free, self-directed cultural spaces. During deindustrialization, vacant factories and warehouses began to be used as performance venues and clubs.

In particular, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 abandoned factories and industrial facilities across Berlin became laboratories for new cultural experiments. Berghain, too, is a space created by converting a former power plant building.

As techno music from Detroit in the United States flowed in, Berlin grew into a global center of electronic music.

Visitors view a sound-installation exhibition at the techno club Berghain in Berlin, Germany, in July 2020. Getty Images/Imazins

Today, Berlin’s clubs are not simply places to dance and drink. They have taken root as alternative cultural spaces where music, art, and fashion intersect. At last year’s Berlin Fashion Week, a runway show was even held inside Berghain.

Cultural figures estimate that Berlin’s club culture generates economic value of 1.5 billion euros (about KRW 2,634.9 billion) each year.

Yet in recent years, Germany’s clubs have been pushed to the brink.

Skyrocketing rents, redevelopment, noise complaints, and shifts in consumption patterns after COVID-19 have combined to spread a phenomenon dubbed ‘Clubsterben’ (the ‘death of clubs’).

Representative Berlin clubs such as SchwuZ, Watergate, and Mensch Meier have recently closed. The industry estimates that roughly half of Berlin’s clubs are considering shutting down.

Their legal status is also cited as a problem. At present in Germany, clubs are classified as ‘entertainment facilities’. This makes them vulnerable to noise regulations and imposes many siting restrictions. Once redevelopment begins, they are often the first to be pushed out.

Marc Wohlrabe,a director at the LiveKomm association, told the Guardian, “Clubs are spaces that discover emerging artists and create new culture, making them much closer to theaters,” adding, “They should be recognized as cultural institutions like opera or theater.”

A banner reading “No highway to hell” hangs on the building of ‘://about blank’, one of the clubs threatened by the expansion of the A100 motorway in Berlin, Germany. Plans to extend the A100 through the Ostkreuz area have put the city’s famed techno clubs at risk of closure. Getty Images/Imazins

Soaring rents are also a burden. The economic capacity of the young demographic that most frequents clubs has declined, and the recent drop in alcohol consumption among younger generations is likewise undermining profitability.

The German daily taz wrote, “The death of clubs will accelerate the commercialization of Berlin,” adding, “If clubs remain only as spaces for tourists and corporate events, we can no longer call it ‘Berlin club culture’.”

People gather for the “Last Cheers, Queers” closing party at the SchwuZ club in Berlin, Germany, on November 1 last year. Founded in 1977, SchwuZ is Germany’s oldest queer club and has played an important role in showcasing Berlin’s traditional openness toward the LGBTQIA+ community. The club’s final night came as it closed due to financial difficulties. Getty Images/Imazins

Germany’s bid to recognize clubs as cultural facilities stems from this sense of crisis. The government sees clubs not as mere nightlife spaces but as cultural and economic assets that attract tourists, draw young talent, and boost urban competitiveness.

If the amendment takes effect, clubs will be acknowledged as facilities with artistic and cultural value. They will be permitted to operate in some residential areas, and the grounds for protecting them during redevelopment will be strengthened.

A Berlin club official told the Guardian, “We have often been treated like criminals,” adding, “This change recognizes that clubs are essential cultural spaces that make cities vibrant and diverse.”

What Germany seeks to protect may not be clubs themselves. It is the city that turned disused factories into performance venues and nurtured unfamiliar sounds into new culture. Is this not an effort to safeguard the diversity and cultural ecosystem that made Berlin what it is?

Berghain, the techno club in Berlin, Germany, stands closed during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. Getty Images/Imazins