Space of Urgency Demonstration, as it’s called, will begin at 11:00 PM at the Alexanderplatz transportation hub in Berlin’s Mitte district. Among the organizers are Kollektiv Spieltribe, Love Foundation and Studio dB. Participants are required to take a COVID-19 test beforehand as well as wearing an FFP2 mask and exercising social distancing at the gathering.

The peaceful protest has been organized “because of the rapid disappearance of socio-cultural venues, clubs, self-determined housing and free spaces,” according to Space of Urgency’s Facebook event page. “These spaces of urgency are crucial for Berlin’s unique identity and urban resilience in total.”

The protestors’ demands include a mediation task force that would lobby on behalf of such spaces, improved access to bureaucratic resources for them, and policy changes in their favor. They additionally intend to raise awareness for issues faced by similar cultural institutions in Colombia, Holland, Palestine, Greece and Georgia.

“Clubsterben” refers to the increased closure of clubs and other creative institutions in recent years due to commercial property developments. Many such spaces, Hegemann’s Tresor in particular, have been active since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1991. At that time the availability of abandoned facilities converged with the reunification of Germany, setting the stage for Berlin’s world-renowned nightlife scene.

More information will be made available on the Space of Emergency website.

Tresor and Kraftwerk Berlin founder Dimitri Hegemann has shared that his vision for the Tresor Foundation Berlin is essentially seek to gain national landmark status for iconic German nightclubs such as the ones he owns. He explained the purpose of the organization in detail in a recent Facebook post.

“The real estate markets are boiling over; gentrification is causing the displacement of the socially disadvantaged, the traditional social mix of neighborhoods is disappearing and with it the presence of cultural and creative spaces in the center of cities,” wrote Hegemann in the post.

“The Tresor Foundation Berlin therefore aims to appropriate real estate for the realization of charitable purposes (e.g. acquisition and further development of the Kraftwerk building on Köpenicker Strasse 70 in Berlin-Mitte) and thus to withdraw it from speculation and secure it permanently,” he continued. Real estate owned by the foundation will remain the property of the foundation. This aim will be achieved exclusively by means of public welfare-oriented and forward-looking measures.”

In the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991, organizers like Hegemann were able to fashion nightclubs and social spaces in old industrial buildings with very little government intervention. Since then, newer developments have forced those club owners and organizers out of their spaces, displacing them or forcing them to fold entirely.

Emily Dust explored that history and the current state of Clubsterben in Germany in her documentary, “Berlin’s Nightlife” on BBC‘s Art Of Now. Hegemann’s newly formed foundation will combat the Clubsterben, and preserve precious sociocultural spaces like Kraftwerk Berlin, whose future is even more dubious after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a comment on his Facebook post, Dimitri Hegemann elaborated that the Tresor Foundation Berlin will begin work after obtaining its certificates, and that a website will be launched soon. No further details have been released at the time of writing.

As of Friday, Berlin cafes and restaurants can operate from 6:00 AM-10:00 PM as long as they serve food prepared in house. Sisyphos’ management have taken advantage of the development by replacing dancing with culinary offerings at “Sittingphos Ent-aurant,” as they call it. “Get cozy at one of our new tables and enjoy hygiene instructions and table service,” reads their Facebook post. “Without dancing, but with music, food, drinks, goodies from the kiosk, and masked Sisy staff waiting your table faster than lightning.”

Plans aren’t as firm at ://about blank. “Containing the pandemic remains our top priority,” Elisabeth Steffen told Berliner Zeitung on behalf of the club. “But of course we notice that there is a longing – with the guests and with us.” She said the owners are weighing out options that would allow them to reopen responsibly.

Exploration of Space

Both Sisyphos and ://about blank carry on a long and celebrated Berlin tradition of repurposing abandoned buildings as creative venues.

Sisyphos opened in 2008 in what used to be a Rummelsburg dog biscuit factory. The open-air club’s tongue-in-cheek branding matches its eccentric decor and surreal atmosphere. Under ordinary circumstances, scheduling is so cryptic that there’s a website whose sole purpose is to tell you whether Sisyphos is open.

On the other hand, since 2010 ://about blank has occupied a former kindergarten in Friedrichshain that has been vacant since the ’90s per Berliner Zeitung. Keeping alive the protest music roots of German techno, its bouncers enforce a selective, Berghain-esque admission policy.

Berlin clubs like YAAM and [ipsə] remain hesitant to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Selector recently touched on, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 opened the door for event organizers to utilize a wealth of industrial spaces with little lawmaker intervention. In recent years, however, new developments have forced more club owners to relocate or discontinue their business altogether. Dust interviewed Tresor founder Dimitri Hegemann, Georg Kössler of Berlin’s parliament, and Berlin Club Commission Chair Pamela Schobess among others to paint a detailed picture of the dilemma.

According to the documentary, nightlife brought the city €1.5 billion in 2018. Schobess said that in 2019 the Commission had published research intended to educate the public on clubbing’s economic impact, and Kössler mentioned that one potential solution to the Clubsterben might be to explore ways clubs can occupy public spaces instead of private ones.

“Berlin’s Nightlife” can be streamed in its entirety via the BBC website.