Munich's New Techno Shrine Is Named After a Dead London Club. It Doesn't Have a Permit Yet Either.

Why name a Munich club after a London venue that's already gone?

Printhouse opens October 17 at 10pm in a decommissioned newspaper printing facility on Dessauerstraße in Munich-Moosach, a few minutes from the OEZ shopping center. Nine-meter ceilings, raw concrete, the old machinery hall left mostly intact: it's the kind of room techno people have been chasing since Printworks shut in London in 2023. The reference isn't subtle. Groove, the German trade outlet that broke the story, noted that the name itself leans on Printworks' own branding, right down to the works-turned-club premise.

That's the bet here: Munich hasn't had a room this size built specifically for techno, and the operators are explicitly chasing the industrial-cathedral feeling that made Printworks one of the most mourned closures in the genre's recent history.

What happens on opening night, and after?

The "Printhouse Opening" on October 17 is headlined by The Lady Machine and the Zenker Brothers, the Munich duo behind the label Ilian Tape. It starts at 10pm. Crucially, this isn't the launch of a weekly club: Printhouse is positioning itself as a monthly series of large scale events, closer to a one-off rave model than a resident-DJ room with a regular door policy.

The ambition goes further than parties. The operators have told local press they want the site to grow into a full cultural center within the next year, adding concerts, exhibitions, theater and a restaurant that would run independently of the event calendar.

The approval for a permanent change of use for the site is still outstanding.

Why does the permit status matter more than the lineup?

Here's the part that actually matters for the scene beyond Munich. Printhouse is opening its doors on a provisional footing: the permanent rezoning needed to legally operate the site as a venue long-term has not been granted. That's not a footnote, it's the same bureaucratic trap that has killed or stalled warehouse-conversion clubs across Europe for a decade, from London to Berlin. A big room in a former industrial building photographs well and books well, but it only survives if the city eventually signs off on the zoning change. Printhouse is throwing a launch party before that question is settled, which is either confidence or a calculated bet that a packed opening night makes the rezoning case for them.