Industriesalon Schöneweide

Industriesalon Schöneweide is a small-scale Berlin concert setting inside a former workshop of the Transformatorenwerk Oberschöneweide. Public listings give the site a 600–650-square-metre footprint, while a concert audience figure remains unlisted. Its defining feature is the permanent industrial-history collection: live sets take place in a hall shaped by objects, documents and machinery from Schöneweide’s electrical-manufacturing past, giving a recital or experimental programme a markedly different setting from a standard black-box room.

Saved from the works museum

The venue grew from an act of preservation. The association’s founding meeting took place on 11 June 2009, bringing together local residents, preservation advocates, former workers, HTW professors and businesses to safeguard the collection of the former Werk für Fernsehelektronik. Its hall had served as the preliminary workshop of the Oberschöneweide transformer factory until the fall of the Wall, placing the project within the industrial complex whose story it presents. In August 2009, members rescued the former factory museum “Technik im Turm” as it faced disposal and moved it into the Industriesalon. Funding followed in 2011 for renovation of the worn production hall, securing the association 15 years of rent-free use. The result is a visitor centre, archive and exhibition space that also makes room for music and conversation.

The room today

Expect occasional cultural programming instead of a nightly club schedule: the calendar combines concerts, musical readings, talks and community events. Recent listings have ranged across danceable band sets, big-band music and punk, while forthcoming programming includes Kontrapunkt Berlin’s Jon Rose birthday project, suggesting an open ear for experimental and cross-genre work. Rentals cover the full hall or a dedicated event room, subject to the current exhibition. The main exhibition room measures 350 square metres with a seven-metre ceiling, plus a welcome counter, cloakroom and an open first-floor gallery. Sightlines and atmosphere come with exhibits in the frame.