When Tresor opened on March 13th 1991 in a shack on Potsdamer Platz, beneath which the vault of the Wertheim department store lay, no one would have thought that from there would arise an institution that one day would celebrate 25 years of existence. The venue had only been licensed as an art gallery and received a lease of just three months. Needless to say, in the early days, every single day they expected the authorities to close the venue down.

Instead, the club became the formative stylistic starting point of a worldwide music and youth movement. The Tresor cellar, with its dance floor pressed between bank safes, the unique sound and the dense fog, became a symbol of the successful reunification of the youth of two formerly separated German states, who danced and celebrated here together from the club’s inception. DJs and artists from Detroit were the main inspiration for the sound of the vault – the now famous Berlin-Detroit connection resulted in a very special friendship between the two cities. As a club and record label, Tresor had already become a worldwide magnet and advertisement for the city of Berlin.