Berlin gets down and Funkhaus

Berlin’s 1950s-era Funkhaus complex was the main radio broadcast facility for all of Eastern Germany for decades. It was designed to be the largest radio-broadcasting site in the world. Even now, after years of disuse and then a slow but steady private refurbishment effort, it’s one of those landmark structures that helps give Berlin its unique identity among major world cities.

The campus sits in an idyllic location right along the banks of the Spree river, in an industrial zone just outside of the more dense central neighborhoods of the city. Many of the buildings were abandoned for years after the GDR radio operation shut down post-reunification, and as a result much of the original mid-century architecture and design has been wonderfully preserved.

In October 2023 I saw a mesmerizing live performance there by Nils Frahm inside the famous Saal 1 (Studio 1), a massive orchestral recording hall with incredible acoustics. But that didn’t really prepare me for how amazing it was to dive deeper inside this huge compound and get the chance to record with both guitarist Birk Buttchereyt and pianist Niklas Nadidai inside one of Funkhaus’ original purpose-built studios. I’ve always been fascinated by architecture and design, especially mid-century modernism, but something very weird and special is happening when you can intensely “feel” the history of a building while you’re working inside of it.

I can’t possibly do proper justice to the fascinating history of Funkaus in this short post, but fortunately, other writers have already done the job. I'll refer you to this wonderfully in-depth article by Kana Miyazawa from 2018. It has some great photos of the different buildings around the grounds, and it also gives a wonderful sense of the historic importance of Funkhaus, both to the GDR when it was operational, and also to the creative energy of Berlin today.