 Blitz Club (2019) | |
 | |
| Address | Museumsinsel 1 |
|---|---|
| Location | Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, Munich, Germany |
| Coordinates | 48°7′53″N11°35′8.2″E / 48.13139°N 11.585611°E |
| Type | Nightclub |
| Genre(s) | Techno |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1935 |
| Opened | 22 April 2017 |
| Website | |
| Blitz Club | |
Blitz Club is a techno nightclub in the Munich district of Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt.
The club is located in the former congress hall of the Deutsches Museum, completed in 1935 at the location of Munich's Museumsinsel 1 ("museum island".) The building housed Munich's largest concert hall and a planetarium until 1985, after which it became an IMAX cinema. The congress hall then stood empty for seven years, until the club's operators applied for permission to transform it into a club in 2016. [1] The resulting conversion work required meticulous planning and took several months to complete. This was due to the numerous structural challenges posed by the building being located on a river island. The club eventually opened on 22 April 2022. [2] [3] The nightclub offers two separate dance floors, two bars, several chill-out areas and a smoking room. In total, the club can accommodate up to 800 guests. [4] [5] Blitz Club also hosts an independently-run vegetarian restaurant. [6]
The sound architecture is the main feature of the club, and has been discussed repeatedly by music magazines [7] [8] [9] and architecture journals. [10] [11] Unlike former Munich techno clubs like Ultraschall, KW – Das Heizkraftwerk or MMA Club , the Blitz Club is not located in a former industrial setting, but was built into the congress hall according to a room-in-room concept in order to offer the best possible sound experience in accordance with the guiding principle form follows function. [1] [10] [3] The rooms were optimized for the acoustic experience together with sound engineers, architects and acousticians. [7] [8] In order to achieve optimal room acoustics, there are hardly any right angles in the club, but specially shaped panels made of beech wood and perforated sheet that were developed according to the specifications of an acoustician. [12] [11] In order to gently scatter the sound waves, a seemingly chaotic honeycomb structure, which was modelled after the swarm behaviour of fish, birds and insects and calculated by a specially developed computer algorithm in a week, is milled into the surfaces of these wall panels. [7] [10] [11] [13] The club uses a custom-made PA system by VOID, which is arranged as a four-point system, so that there is a PA tower in each corner around the dance floor, [2] [14] as well as 360-degree tweeters hanging from the ceiling named "Blitz horn", that were specially designed for the club, and allow the DJ to create three-dimensional sound effects. [7] [8] [15]
Instead of concentrating the attention on the DJ and placing them on a raised stage, the main floor and the sound system were designed to set the focus on the dance floor and the dancers. [3] [9] All in all, the puristic club design is optimized for the sound and dance experience, while oversized branding is avoided. [7] The visual appearance of the club was designed by British musician Trevor Jackson. [16] [12] [17]
The operators of the club consist of former crew members of the clubs Bob Beaman, Charlie, Registratur, King, and Kong Club. [18] [19] Head of the musical program is DJ David Muallem; [12] [3] [20] further resident DJs are the Zenker Brothers, [21] [22] [15] Skee Mask , [2] [23] [15] Stenny, [23] [15] Sascha Sibler, [7] [12] [15] Julietta, [24] [15] Glaskin, and La Staab. [25] Blitz Club has featured appearances by DJs and live acts such as Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Carl Craig, Ben Sims, Seth Troxler, I-F, Miss Kittin, Surgeon, Luke Slater, Laurent Garnier, Nina Kraviz, DJ Hell, Sven Väth, Chris Liebing, Monika Kruse, Ellen Allien, Boys Noize, Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock, Len Faki, Steve Bug, Modeselektor, Michael Mayer, Roman Flügel, and Âme. [26] The Blitz Club was also a venue for the Germany-wide Telekom Electronic Beats Clubnight series. [27] [28] The club also offers a series of events for the gay fetish scene called Cruise. [29] [2]
The club has a strict ban on photography and filming to ensure that guests can concentrate fully on dancing. [30] [31] According to the operators, however, the club also wants to be a place of inclusion without a strict door policy. [16] [2] [32] Since the club's curfew was lifted in July 2017, it is now allowed to remain open until the morning hours. [33] [34]
The club's opening event on 22 April 2017 made headlines throughout Germany. [35] [36] [37] In the weeks leading up to the opening event, extensive media coverage [38] had generated significant hype for the opening night and resulted in large crowds turning up at Museumsinsel. [39] Instead of the permitted maximum of 800 guests, the club was quickly overcrowded with 1,500 people. [35] The situation escalated as crowds began to spill onto access roads, emergency exits, escape routes and nearby tram tracks. This resulted in a major fire brigade and police intervention to defuse the situation. Police and fire services blocked a nearby major arterial road, cleared the venue's front terrace and sent hundreds of people home. [40] Numerous disappointed guests later criticized the event's poor planning and management. [41] [42]
In addition to being a techno club, Blitz also hosts a vegetarian Mexican & Central American restaurant on the same site, which is run separately and independently by Sandra Forster, a prominent name in the Munich gastronomy scene. [6] [43] [44] [45] It has received significant attention from newspapers and gastronomy magazines for its outstanding menu and unique interior design. [45] [46] [47] [48] Its outdoor terrace hosts a beer garden on the Isar's riverbank. In contrast to the club, the restaurant does not operate a photo ban.
Blitz Club is regularly featured in national and international daily newspapers and news magazines, specialist magazines for electronic music and club culture, as well as journals for architecture and sound architecture. On Resident Advisor , the nightclub is rated as one of the most popular clubs in Munich (2nd place, as of October 2019). [49] Mixmag Asia ranked the club as one of "10 of the best new clubs on the planet to go raving at" in 2017. [50] In the annual readers' poll of Faze Magazine, the club was voted third best in 2017, [51] and fourth best in 2019. [52] In the annual reader poll of Groove magazine, the club was also voted one of the best in 2017 (4th place). [53]
Juan Atkins, also known as Model 500 and Infiniti, is an American record producer and DJ from Detroit, Michigan. Mixmag has described him as "the original pioneer of Detroit techno." He has been a member of the Belleville Three, Cybotron, and Borderland.
Helmut Josef Geier, known professionally as DJ Hell, is a German DJ.
Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of North American and European house music of the late 1980s.
Carl Cox is a British house and techno club DJ, radio DJ and record producer. He is based in Frankston, Victoria, Australia.
Balearic beat, also known as Balearic house, Balearic, Ibiza house or Ibizan chillout, is an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance/house music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza", even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island, such as Balearic trance.
Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. It is generally produced for playback by DJs who create seamless selections of tracks, called a DJ mix, by segueing from one recording to another. EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA. Since its inception EDM has expanded to include a wide range of subgenres.
Sven Väth is a German DJ and electronic music producer. He is a three-time DJ Awards winner, and his career in electronic music spans over 30 years. The single "Electrica Salsa" with OFF launched his career in 1986. Referred to as "Papa Sven" by his fans, Sven Väth has made his mark in the music community by being one of Germany's pop stars in the nineties, running two night clubs in Germany, and starting his own company Cocoon, which encompasses a booking agency, record label, and a branch for events. He is recognized for cultivating the underground electronic music scene not just in Germany but in Ibiza as well, with his own night at Amnesia for eighteen years and after-parties at creative locations around the island. Sven Väth is a major proponent of vinyl, using only two decks and a mixer for his extensive DJ sets, his longest set having been 30 hours.
Tribal Gathering is the original British electronic dance music festival that between 1993 and 2004 catered for different types of dance music cultures such as techno, house and drum & bass. After 18 years, Tribal Gathering returns in 2023 for a two-day event to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Monika Kruse is a German techno DJ/producer and record label owner, with a career in electronic music spanning more than 25 years. She played an influential role in the early Munich rave scene during the early 1990s and was among the first wave of German techno artists to tour internationally, before moving to Berlin at the end of the decade where she founded her Terminal M record label.
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (BPM). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.
Stefan Goldmann is a German-Bulgarian DJ and composer of electronic music. His work has been described as intelligent minimal techno.
Union Move was a technoparade that occurred annually in Munich from 1995 to 2001. It was an initiative by Munich event organizers and nightclub owners to demonstrate against the Munich curfew and excessive police controls. A recurring motto of the parade was "Music is the only drug!". The first Union Move took place on 27 May 1995 and attracted 60,000 people. The 1996 parade for the first time attracted 100,000 people, as well as the 1997 parade which involved 16 trucks equipped with sound systems. The next three parades attracted between 60,000 and 70,000 people, but in 2001 attendance declined. The parade usually started at Münchner Freiheit square and continued over Leopoldstraße all the way to Odeonsplatz, and in the first years even further over Isartor to Marienplatz where the final took place. After the final ravers could board a Housetram and this way continue partying through the city. At night the festival was continued at multiple after-parties in the local nightclubs under the motto Night Move. In 2015 an initiative was launched to revive the parade. So far, however, these attempts have not been successful.
The Bahnwärter Thiel is a techno club, music venue and alternative cultural center in Munich, Germany. It is named after the novella "Bahnwärter Thiel" by German author Gerhart Hauptmann.
MMA Club(Mixed Munich Arts Club) was a techno nightclub in Munich, Germany, renowned as one of the best in Germany in the 2010s. It was a multifaceted establishment based inside the husk of an old thermal power plant and has hosted underground techno DJs such as Richie Hawtin, Adam Beyer, Len Faki, Ben Klock, Marcel Dettmann, Ben Sims or Terence Fixmer, among many others. The maze-like club also contained a 460-square-meter gallery space frequently utilized for a variety of theatrical, artistic and orchestral performances.
Ultraschall was a nightclub in Munich, Germany from 1994 to 2003. The techno club belonged, besides the Tresor and E-Werk in Berlin, the Dorian Gray and Omen in Frankfurt, and the Munich-based clubs KW – Das Heizkraftwerk, Natraj Temple and Millennium, to the most renowned clubs of Germany's 1990s techno culture. According to FazeMag, Ultraschall was "for many techno fans the most authentic techno club alongside the Tresor".
KW – Das Heizkraftwerk was a nightclub in Munich, Germany from 1996 to 2003. The techno club belonged, besides the Tresor and E-Werk in Berlin, the Dorian Gray and Omen in Frankfurt, and the Munich-based clubs Ultraschall, Natraj Temple and Millennium, to the most renowned clubs of Germany's 1990s techno culture.
Natraj Temple [] was a nightclub in Munich, Germany from 1996 to 2008. Germany's first steady psytrance nightclub belonged, besides the Tresor and E-Werk in Berlin, the Dorian Gray and Omen in Frankfurt, and the Munich-based clubs Ultraschall, KW – Das Heizkraftwerk and Millennium, to the most renowned clubs of Germany's 1990s techno culture, and was considered an international centre of the Goa trance movement.
Lisa Smith, performing as Noncompliant and formerly known as DJ Shiva, is an American DJ and record producer.
Babalu Club was one of the most well-known nightclubs of the early German techno scene and was located in Munich's Schwabing district from 1990 to 1994.
Graham Anthony Goodwin, also known as Sian, is an Irish electronic dance music producer, DJ, visual artist, and record label owner. He founded Octopus Recordings label in 2008. He has released records on Diynamic, Cocoon Recordings, and Drumcode Records music labels, and produced remixes for Jan Blomqvist, Oliver Heldens, and Deadmau5, among others. Goodwin hosts a show on his label’s Octopus Radio, appears on BBC Northern Ireland radio, the Sirius XM BPM station, and has been featured on Apple Music.
Media related to Blitz Club at Wikimedia CommonsDE-BY_type:landmark 48°7′53″N11°35′8.2″E / 48.13139°N 11.585611°E