The man behind the iconic Tresor techno club, Dimitri Hegemann, turned Berlin into a party metropolis. Now he wants to bring a cultural revolution to ailing Detroit.
Read the english adaptation of the article in Die Zeit here .
Just more than a week ago, the Detroit team — as well as Detroit city council members, architects, investors, and developers, plus Packard Plant owner Fernando Palazuelo — made their way to Berlin to observe how the city transformed itself from a post-war zone to one of Europe’s top cultural epicenters. The idea is to bring some of the concepts back to the Motor City. COntinue reading here ..
On Thursday September 20th a delegation from Detroit that included staff from the mayor’s office, the owner of one of the city’s most famous repurposed power plants and members of pioneering local techno group Underground Resistance arrived in Berlin for a four-day tour to discuss the potential benefits the Motor City may reap from investing in its creative industry. The Detroit-Berlin Connection (DBF) initiated the embassy in order to,according to its website, “show Detroit leaders the results of over 25 years of revitalization efforts, many of them based on outside-the-box tactics that include marketing Berlin’s round the clock bar service and temporary use of empty spaces for a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities.” Continue reading here
It began by redefining what “techno” is and ended with a declaration that “we must keep Detroit weird.” In between, there were four hours of presentations, discussions, slides, and marketing strategies to promote “subcultural” assets and develop the city’s “night economy.”
The second Detroit-Berlin Connection conference, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) last Wednesday, offered outside-the-box ideas and actions to move Detroit forward. There were no heady monologues steeped in obscure theory. It was a solutions-based conference based around Detroit inspiration and simple ideas that work in Berlin.
Walter Wasac’s continues the story here ..
Detroit has been compared to a lot of things, but is it like Berlin, a city bombed out in World War II and then cut in half for more than 40 years?
The capital of Germany is a city of 3.4 million with a lot of things going on that Detroit would love to have. It’s the third most popular European city tourists flock to, behind London and Paris. It boasts more than 300 “places where music is played,” with many of those nightclubs. Read more here .
Urban planners in Detroit have been looking to Berlin for revitalization strategies based on artistic and entrepreneurial efforts. One such group is the Detroit-Berlin Connection, which has focused on the shared legacies of techno music between the two cities.
The group will host its second annual Detroit conference on May 20 at MOCAD. According to a release, “This free event is designed to challenge traditional views and boundaries in reaching new horizons and possibilities in Detroit, while involving community organizers and stakeholders, entrepreneurs, artists, and individuals from various backgrounds.” Read more here.
The conference will get a proper Detroit kickoff from John Collins and Cornelius Harris of Underground Resistance, arguably the world’s most powerful techno brand. More guests from Detroit and Berlin are all part of the program. Read the full article here .
For the french speaking out there find the article to read here !
… concluding with Hegemanns Quotes : “Detroit needs a creative lighthouse,” and “We can at least start a discussion and ask questions like, ‘Could this work in Detroit?’ ” a great debate is being initiated. Read the full article here .
The question is : Can Dimitri Hegemann bring Techno back to Detroit. The founder of legendary techno-haven Tresor in Berlin, has a new idea for a club in an abandoned car factory in the Motorcity. Well, if anyone can do it… Read the whole article here .
Walter Wasacz recaps the happenings and results of the week in Detroit from his and the cities perspective :
“For Dimitri Hegemann, who was in Detroit over Thanksgiving weekend to talk about his vision for the abandoned Fisher Body Plant 21, simplicity and sharing are guiding principles. He uses few filters when presenting his ideas, choosing transparency over secrecy, selflessness over ego-driven ambition. His message: this is about you, not me, Detroit not Berlin. ” Continue reading here.
Will Lynch , also associate editor at the online music magazine Resident Advisor, writes for the guardian about the plans of the Detroit-Berlin Connection. Check out the article here.
A great website with great stories. Here is one of them !
A look on the Fisher Body plans and the visit of the abandoned space with Detroit artist Skott Hocking. Find out more here.
Jon Pareles is the chief pop music critic for The New York Times and took a deep look into its cities history and present – a very interesting read about the cities evolution and the roots of the techno generation here.
Their take on it and how the evaluate what the city needs now, you can find out here .
Berliner Dimitri Hegemann to discuss plans for Fisher Body 21 at community talk on Nov. 29. FInd out more here.
A beautiful article and Interview about our vision for Detroit here (in french).
Techno clubs were key to the regeneration of Germany’s capital in the 1990s and now they’re looking to help the city that inspired them in the first place – Detroit. Spearheading the Detroit-Berlin Connection project is Dimitri Hegemann.
via NPR music news
The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit : Read more here .
Where Detroit Sees a Derelict Factory, Berliners See a Techno Dance Club. Jack Nicas on the potential plans he sees for Fisher Body 21 , published on October 14th here .
A very nice view on the Detroit-Berlin Connection and the plans for Fisher Body 21 featured by the online magazine The Hundred here .
An interesting read about Fisher Body 21 here !
.. find out more here.
Another perspective on the Fisher Body 21 plans on pulsradio here.
A version of the article in the german edition of the WJS you can find here .
Though he keeps a pretty low profile, Dimitri Hegemann is one of the most important figures in the history of techno. Most know him as the founder of Tresor, the legendary club that kickstarted Berlin’s techno scene and established the city’s creative dialogue with Detroit. But by the time Tresor opened in 1991, Hegemann was already an accomplished promoter. Starting in 1981, he ran a festival called Atonal, which played host to everyone from Throbbing Gristle and Einsturzende Neubauten to early electronic acts like 808 State. Like Tresor, Atonal pushed Berlin’s music scene forward and demonstrated Hegemann’s peerless vision as a curator. These days Atonal is in the midst of a comeback—last year the festival was held for the first time in more than two decades at Kraftwerk Berlin, a breathtakingly enormous space in the same building as Tresor. As he and his team prepare for this year’s edition, we invited Hegemann to RA’s Berlin office to reflect on his career in the city’s music scene.
Please find here a link for a feature on the German radio station Deutschalndradio Kultur by Martin Boettcher.
IXITI’s look on it here