The story of Tacheles is the story of Berlin – a giant shopping complex when it opened in 1909, then a department store, then it was the first building in the world to broadcast a live sporting event to the world during the Berlin Olympics in 1936 when it was owned by the AEG electric company. The Nazis took over after that and turned it into the SS’ central office. Then the war. Then the Russians. Then the squatters. Then the sellout.

Now it’s a fucking hideous shopping mall apartment block hotel photography for hipsters exhibition space, mocking everything that was there before. Berlin, you really fucked up with Tacheles.

The photos below are from 2009, 2010 and 2012. There’s an additional gallery of the eviction on the morning of Sept. 9, 2012, when the police trampled on the worthless signatures on the petitions to save it. There are another couple after that showing the construction in 2019. There’s been nothing worth photographing since.