ACUD Macht Neu

ACUD Macht Neu is the club and concert arm of Kunsthaus ACUD in Berlin-Mitte, configured for concerts of up to 140 people. Its distinguishing feature is context: the ground-floor room opens onto the courtyard of a wider art house shared with cinema, theatre, gallery, studios and a bar. That makes a show here feel connected to an active cultural compound, with a scale suited to close-range electronic sets, performances and left-field bills.

Saved, then remade

The story starts in 1991, when a group of artists took over an empty tenement house near Weinbergspark and founded Kunsthaus ACUD. The building had already lived several industrial lives, including furniture factory, basket workshop, haulage business and dairy, before its cultural conversion. A major renovation from 2004 to 2006 expanded the house’s facilities, then rising costs pushed ACUD into insolvency in 2010.

Foreclosure threatened the whole project in 2014. Julie Gayard, Johannes Braun and fellow cultural workers formed ACUD MACHT NEU to take on the club, gallery and studio side; the house was secured and the refreshed project officially reopened on September 27, 2014. The result kept the older cinema and theatre operators in the building while giving the live-music spaces a new programme and identity.

The room and its bills

ACUD Club’s programming welcomes proposals, with selection based on quality and relevance. Its stated focus is on platforms for queer, BIPOC, FLINTA, refugee and endangered communities, so the calendar moves across live electronic music, unconventional DJ sets, sound installations, readings, workshops and performance. The 100-square-metre club uses a mobile setup and a sound system redesigned in October 2023; courtyard access offers a useful breather between sets, while the wider house supplies the bar-and-art-space atmosphere.