Umspannwerk 1926 · Reopened 2019 · Berlin-Wedding
Weddings, launches and gala dinners for 40 to 450 guests, staged inside a converted 1926 electrical substation — 680 m² of brick, brass and candlelight, five minutes from the U6.
( I ) — The house
For eight decades this building stepped voltage down for north Berlin. When the substation closed in 2011, the hall spent eight quiet years imagining its second life — then reopened in 2019 as the room it was always rehearsing to be.
We kept the gantry crane, the control gallery and six metres of transformer plinths, and added the things evenings actually need: a warm-dim lighting rig, proper acoustics, a scullery that can serve 280 plates at once, and several thousand candles.
“Guests remember how a room felt, never the floor plan. So we build feeling first.” — Katrin Vogelsang, house director
0 m²
Main hall floor
0
Guests, full-house standing
0 m
From floor to gantry crane
0+
Evenings hosted since 2019
( II ) — The spaces
Hire any room alone, or open all four as one flowing house — ceremony above, dinner below, dancing in the hall, nightcap in the Control Room.
The heart of the house: gantry crane overhead, candlelight at eye level, and a floor that has held everything from 20-course dinners to 400-person keynotes.
from €3,900 / day, dry hire
Above the floor, below the rafters — ceremonies with the hall as backdrop, seated conferences, or the quiet dinner that looks down on the party.
from €1,900 / day, dry hire
Oak, brass and the old switchboard — the former engineers’ room, now one 14-metre table for board dinners, tastings and the best kind of small wedding.
from €850 / evening
Chestnut trees, festoon lights and the smell of the partner kitchen’s grill — arrivals, July ceremonies, and the first cigarette-minute of every good party.
from €1,200 / day, May–Sep
( III ) — Occasions
Also in the register: fashion-week shows, film shoots, market halls, award juries — if it fits 14 metres of vertical drama, it fits here.
( IV ) — Evenings on record
( V ) — The machinery
Every hire arrives with the house production crew — the same team that runs our own evenings — so nothing on the night is anyone’s first time.
A show caller, dedicated
One name, one run-sheet, one headset — yours from planning summit to last taxi.
Light, sound & stage
64 moving heads, house PA, 8×6 m stage, blackout in ninety seconds.
Furniture in-house
600 bentwood chairs, 70 tables, lounge stock — no rental vans, no surcharges.
Kitchens we trust
Four vetted partner caterers — or bring your own for a small kitchen buyout.
Bar & floor team
Bartenders, cloakroom, security, cleaning — staffed to your guest count, not a formula.
Licences handled
Assembly permit, GEMA music filing and liability cover arranged under our roof policy.
The rhythm of a booking
Six movements, same tempo every time. Most evenings go from enquiry to contract inside three weeks.
Tue–Thu, 10:00–18:00. We walk the house as your guest list would — arrivals first, cloakroom last.
Your date is pencilled while you decide. If another enquiry lands on it, you hear from us first.
Ninety minutes with your show caller. You leave with drawings, a supplier shortlist and a costed sheet.
Florists, bands and set builders load through the original substation gates — 4.2 metres wide, no stairs.
House lights live on a fader, the run-sheet lives on a clipboard, and you live inside your own party.
We mop, you collect the leftover flowers. Security deposit returns within five working days.
( VI ) — Word of mouth
“Our guests still talk about walking from a ceremony under the gallery down into two hundred candles. The crew flipped the room in forty minutes and nobody saw a single cable.”
“We revealed a 4-tonne sculpture from the gantry at 20:00 sharp. Press night and trade day in the same footprint, and the run-sheet did not slip one minute.”
“The auction needed theatre; the hall supplied it. Paddles up under the crane, coffee lines that never formed, and our highest-grossing evening on record.”
( VII ) — Practical matters
Six hundred and forty evenings of questions, shortened to six. Anything else — Katrin answers the phone herself, Tue to Thu.
+49 30 7564 2108The Turbine Hall seats 280 for dinner or 450 standing; the full venue — hall, gallery, Control Room and courtyard — flows comfortably to 450. Intimate formats work from 20 guests around the Control Room’s single table.
Yes. Most hosts choose one of our four vetted partner kitchens, but your own caterer is welcome for a small kitchen buyout that covers the scullery, power and waste handling. Tastings happen in the Control Room, four weeks out.
Inside the Turbine Hall — brick walls, no direct neighbours — amplified music runs to 02:00 on Fridays and Saturdays, and 00:00 Sunday to Thursday. The courtyard keeps a residential 22:00 curfew, strictly kept, cheerfully enforced.
Yes. Level entry from the courtyard, one step-free WC, the original goods lift serving the Switch Gallery, and an induction loop fitted on request for conferences and ceremonies. Tell us your access needs at the viewing; we plan around them.
One hundred twenty on-street bays open along Gerichtstraße after 18:00, and our stewards manage arrivals and taxis on event nights. U6 Seestraße is five minutes on foot; trams M13 and M50 stop at the corner.
Dry hire of the Turbine Hall starts at €3,900 on weekdays and €6,800 on Saturdays — furniture stock, rig and show caller included. All-in evening packages (hire, catering, drinks, crew) run from €89 per guest. A written quote follows every viewing, within 48 hours.
( VIII ) — The date is the thing
Saturdays in June can hold eighteen months of history. Send the bones of your evening — Katrin replies within one working day with availability, a costed sketch and two viewing slots.
Reference VV-0000. Katrin will reply to you within one working day — usually with two viewing slots and an honest read on your date.