How it all began
The story of “Himmel unter Berlin” is closely connected to post-reunification Berlin.
In the 1990s, the city was a magnet for artists, musicians, and free spirits.
While major clubs became internationally known, a second, smaller scene existed in parallel: temporary spaces, basements, off-spaces. “Himmel unter Berlin” belonged to this intimate, experimental movement – less mass culture, more laboratory.
During this time, an experimental format called “Himmel unter Berlin” emerged in a former air-raid shelter in Prenzlauer Berg. In 200 square meters underground, the first exhibitions began. A place so dark that everyone had to feel their way forward with a hand in front of their eyes.
A series of exhibitions in the darkest places of Berlin
The rooms were raw, cold, improvised. A charm of imperfection: dark vaults, narrow bunkers, open fuse boxes, an unusual mix of art and music.
Guests came through word of mouth and mailing lists. Access codes changed, addresses were only announced at short notice. It was about atmosphere, art, and encounter.
DJs played without anyone saying “line-up.” It wasn’t a club. It wasn’t an exhibition either.
It was that in-between where Berlin lived at the time.
And somewhere in between, that feeling that you were experiencing something that officially didn’t even exist.
The underground event remained for insiders. There was a reason for that: in 2002, the police cleared the exhibition and brought the bunker chapter to an end.
“Police cleared illegal discotheque” (Tagesspiegel, 04.10.2002)
A series of exhibitions in the darkest places of Berlin
But the idea did not disappear. The creators of Himmel unter Berlin moved into the vacant Willner Brewery to keep the cultural movement alive.
During those years, the Willner Brewery itself was an important temporary cultural site in Berlin – a former industrial complex that offered space to artists, organizers, and collectives.
Here, in this decommissioned industrial complex, the people who had experienced “Himmel unter Berlin” in the bunker worked side by side with a new generation. A group of artists who felt the same longing while living in a city increasingly splitting between tech start-ups and luxury apartments.
In 2017, the Willner Brewery was also sold, and once again a Berlin cultural space faced closure.
When the investors’ bulldozer messages arrived, there was a moment when the new artistic team asked the original initiators of “Himmel unter Berlin” whether they might revive the old format once more.
The answer was: yes.
The concept was carried forward.
But this time without an address.
Link about the last exhibition at the Willner Brewery:
Nowhere Is the New Home
Himmel unter Berlin today was meant to become a phantom in the city. No program. No fixed location.
Something that materializes like a thought. Only for a few days. And then disappears again.
It might be an old warehouse, a hidden industrial wasteland, a tower whose walls breathe stories. Each time a completely new location. In Berlin, where nothing stays vacant for long, emptiness itself becomes the stage.In 2022, Himmel unter Berlin opened its doors again: in underground spaces that are normally inaccessible.
Through a wardrobe door, you enter the underground. Three hours’ time, almost complete darkness. The address remained secret until the very end. The number of guests is limited – because space, time, and humanity in these halls take on a different density once too many people are there.
For a few days - a Lost Place becomes an exhibition space
Rooms that had already been forgotten. Light creeps through broken windows, sound fills halls where machines once stood. Light and performance engage with the existing architecture. The space itself becomes part of the work. And then – everything disappears again.
“Himmel unter Berlin” began as an underground event in a bunker. It survived evictions, relocations, and urban transformation. Today it is no longer a place, but a wandering art format. It appears.
Transforms spaces. Disappears.
In a city where every square meter now comes with a PowerPoint presentation, it recalls something that once defined Berlin when the city was still raw: not the permanent, but the fleeting, the unpredictable, the momentary.
Sometimes it is enough that for three days somewhere a light burns where it should actually be dark.
And then again, it isn’t.
