Berlin Techno Clubs Under Threat From Motorway Expansion
Highway may be a Kraftwerk favorite, but it has become a staple of Berlin's techno music scene, whose expansion threatens to close many clubs in the German capital.
The A100 extension project has drawn environmental groups and campaigners who say it contributes to the climate crisis.
The boulevard, which runs through part of central Berlin, is planned to extend north from the Treptower Park, past the River Spree to the Friedrichshain nightlife center in the coming years.
The Berlin Club Committee, an association of clubs and cultural promoters in the city, said the expansion would threaten five popular nightclubs in the area.
These include About Blank, an industrial-style techno club near Ostcruz station, and Renate, a community center for the LGBTQ community in a renovated building.
"These are clubs that have been around for 20 to 30 years... that's what Berlin is famous for and why people love it," club committee spokesman Lutz Lechenring told AFP.
The club's committee organized a protest rally in early September to protest the project.
A stoppage on the planned A100 rocked the techno music scene as thousands of people waved banners and danced in shorts and leopard print.
- Club Culture -
"Clubs around here... are very important to Berlin culture," said Adrian Schmidt, a 25-year-old student wearing a black T-shirt and pearl necklace.
"These clubs create spaces where everyone can express themselves freely," he said.
Carole Kanal, 25, a marketing executive in Paris, had her first German club experience of bare-knuckles and is a regular at five raucous clubs.
"This is a place where people hold a lot of memories ... and it would be very sad if everything closes," he said.
Berlin's nightclub scene boomed after the fall of the Wall, repurposing many of the city's buildings and industrial wastelands.
But the city's nightlife scene has struggled in recent years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, noise complaints, rising rents, bureaucracy and rising prices.
Ellie Stephenson, 37, a member of the vacant property group, described the A100 widening project as "a gray scumbag on the street".
Do the opposition really think they have a chance against Germany's powerful auto industry and business-friendly FDP-led transport ministry?
He added, "Now no one can say."
But we are determined to fight and we believe that a connected, sustainable, colorful and diverse city is always worth fighting for.
The German wing of Arbs for the Future movement also joined the protest wave and raised environmental issues.
"The construction of the A100 motorway must be stopped completely, not only for obvious social reasons, but also because motorways are a major cause of the climate crisis," said 21-year-old Clara Duvigny, a spokeswoman for the group.
- "Increasing traffic"
But outside the cultural bubble of central Berlin, not everyone is determined to stop the movement.
According to a recent poll by Die Welt newspaper, 62% of Germans support modernizing and expanding the country's road network.
Only 33% believe highway expansion should be stopped to protect the climate.
Decisions on highway infrastructure have been made by the central government, with a limited extension of the A100 motorway agreed in 2016 by former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Currently, the coalition led by Olaf Scholes intends to push these plans forward, although he has promised to re-evaluate some major infrastructure projects based on their environmental impact.
In a recent press conference of the government, the spokesman of the Ministry of Transport, Bastian Bulli, said that the expansion of the highway "is necessary to control and adapt to the traffic flows in the future".
The project is unlikely to face political opposition in Berlin, which earlier this year elected a conservative mayor for the first time in 20 years.
Kay Wegener, a 50-year-old former insurance agent, said he strongly supports the extension.
fec/hmn/cw/ach
