Berlin’s club culture has come under a series of incremental attacks in the last year.

New self-employment laws have left many artists substantial worse off, and changes in legislation regarding royalty payments have proved a serious existential threat to many clubs in the city. As BBC News report, the city’s artistic community has now had to weather yet another serious blow. The Tacheles arts centre, long one of the central nodes of the city’s arts scene, has been shut down.

Situated in the Mitte district, the site – a key Nazi office during the 1930s – was occupied by squatters after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the years since, the building has won a reputation as one of the city’s most iconic arts centres. Spread over 13,500 square feet and five stories, the building includes a host of galleries, a number of workshop spaces, a cinema, a theatre and a cafe-restaurant.

Acting on at the request of building owners HSH Nordbank, who intend to sell the site on to a developer, police evacuated and closed the building on the morning of September 4. Officers were met by a group of 70 disgruntled artists, including a pair of artists in mourning garb playing a funeral music.

The site has long been under danger of closure: having acquired the building from the City Of Berlin in 1998, investment company Fundus attempted – and ultimately failed – to have the site demolished.