Tresor - The new life of an old techno institution

 

You did not get into Berghain, and now you are standing and you just do not know where to go. Do not worry, there are many more legendary techno institutions, and one of them, Tresor, is reopening on the 6th of May, after two years of closure.

So, let’s have a look at the history go Tresor.
 

A basement door opened in Leipziger Strasse 126, Berlin, around 12 a.m. on March 13th, 1991. Many have gone through this door on their route to creating new territories in electronic music. There, they discovered a dance floor in the vaults of a defunct department store, complete with a distinctive sound emitted by dense fog, creating a history that was also a vision of the future night after night.
 

Tresor is not only one of the longest-running techno clubs, but it is one of the most tourist-friendly clubs in Berlin.
 

So it is a great starting point to dive into Berlin’s club scene.
 

Tresor pretty much embodies the entire history of the city of Berlin.
 

Shortly, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the freshly united city entered a liminal phase of chaos and freedom, lacking regulations of any kind.

On top of that, there were historically many empty spaces and especially east Berlin became a playground for illegal squatters and creative free spirits. In 1991, Dimitri Hegemann and Achim Kohlberger discovered the basement of an abandoned department store, which at the beginning of the 20th century happened to be the biggest in Europe. Behind a three-ton heavy steel door, they found a vault and that is where the name comes from, vault is Tresor in German. 
 

Tresor shaped the international perception of what a techno club should look like and what techno should sound like.

 

“ To those that have danced before, and to those that will dance in the future: the light at the end of the long Tresor tunnel is a signal. A flicker amidst the fog. This is our future. This is our place.”

 

The Tresor vault club in Berlin has been essential in defining techno. East and West Berliners celebrated the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the strong room on the former border strip between East and West Berlin to relentlessly hard techno. 
 

The location seemed as odd and unthinkable as techno at the time. Space and music couldn't have been more complimentary. "I think there's barely anyone who didn't come out of that basement a changed person," DJ Tanith says.
 

In 1991, the club was part of a triad that included Tresor, Planet, and Walfisch, an after-hours club. That same year, the inaugural Love Parade and the first Mayday were held. Tresor was the first-ever temporary model, and it served as a crucial pattern for Berlin nightlife in the 1990s.

The notorious raves in the vault paved the way for generations of DJs around the entire world. In 2005 an investor actually bought the area of the ruins, where the vault and the department store was.
 

And sadly, something like this is actually on-brand for Berlin. But, Dimitri Hegemann took the interior of Tresor and reopened it two years later in an abandoned power plant in Mitte, just next to Kreuzberg.


Now that is where it still is today. 

 

Tresor never sleeps…
 

So if you decide to enjoy the Tresor rave scene check out their website.

You can also see upcoming events and buy tickets this weekend on this website.

https://ra.co/clubs/5494