Thanks to Rave The Planet: Berlin’s techno culture is now a UNESCO cultural heritage site!

The rave the planet gGmbH around Dr Motte and Ellen Dosch-Roeingh has been a member of our network for many years. We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate them on the inclusion of Berlin’s techno culture in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Since 2018, the team has been fighting for inclusion in an intensive process, despite many hurdles and doubts about their project. The idea came from Swiss mathematician and musicologist Hans Cousto, who was a founding member of the association set up by Dr Motte and Ellen Dosch-Roeingh at Kunsthaus Tacheles in 2011.

Now it’s official: alongside five other German contributions, UNESCO has honoured the capital’s techno culture with an entry in the nationwide list of intangible cultural heritage. The justification is: “Techno culture in Berlin is not only a specific musical style, but also a living alternative to classical practices of listening to music.” Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth justified the inclusion in a speech: “The new additions not only illustrate the regional diversity and thematic breadth of living culture in Germany, they also stand for an expanded concept of culture that opposes the absurd separation of e- and u-culture. The inclusion of Berlin’s techno culture is indicative of this. For more than 30 years, techno has been an important sound in our capital, also for many people who come to Berlin from Europe and all over the world. For many years, Berlin’s techno culture has stood for values such as diversity, respect and cosmopolitanism.”

In its declaration, UNESCO recognised all those involved in the scene, from sound engineers, producers and promoters to music journalists and bloggers. We think so: An important sign in times when many Berlin club operators and other players in the scene are worried about their existence. The status of intangible cultural heritage comes with legal advantages. This can lower the barriers and requirements for opening and maintaining cultural venues and facilitate access to state subsidies and non-profit funding.