Catalyst is moving to a new home

From October 2026, Catalyst is relocating. KALLE, our new home, is right in the heart of Neukölln and half an hour closer to the center of Berlin. Before we tell you what that means in practice, we want to say something about where our school has come from – it matters for understanding where it is going.

Where we started, and what we believe

Catalyst was founded on a specific belief: that greatness is grown and not born. And that creative education should be built around practice and not permission. That students should be making real work for real audiences from the beginning, not as a simulation for a future moment when someone decides they are ready. That the people who teach should still be practising artists themselves. That creative disciplines should be structured towards exchange, rather than segregated. 

This is the vision that has led our school, year by year, by the people inside it, to where we are today. We started with a small space off Warschauer Straße in 2012 and arrived at Funkhaus in 2013. What comes next is our biggest leap yet.

Our musicians have gone everywhere the work takes them; into Berlin’s studios and venues as performers, acousticians and technicians; onto stages and tours across America, Europe and Asia. Etikett Radio is now an established part of our identity and student community, partnering with Refuge Worldwide and Cashmere Radio. Our public showcases and events draw hundreds of people from outside the school every year.

Film students are screening their films at international festivals. Berlinale and FEST are embedded into our curriculum. Our acting students are performing solo for live audiences by the end of their first year and go on to take-over stages across Berlin, London and Edinburgh. The MA Symposium has gone from an end of year assessment to an international research event. And we now have over 700 alumni actively engaged in the creative industries.

Expanding our creative playground

The direction of the work happening on our courses is pushing us to grow. Film Production has expanded to the point where additional studio capacity is necessary. The acting programme and the cross-discipline performance work happening between schools is beginning to outpace the rehearsal space available. Our music students are engaging in entirely new creative practices that need more specialist spaces to unfold.

Our new campus has both the space and the cultural significance. KALLE is a 45,000 m² building complex, originally from the 1970s. SoundCloud's global headquarters is there. CODE University occupies the floor below us. The record store Rough Trade's only continental European flagship is on the ground floor. There is a concert venue and winter garden with a capacity of 500 people and a large rooftop terrace accessible to our students. Our new campus will be on floors two and three.

By 2027, our campus will be 5400m², that's 46% larger than the one we have at Funkhaus, with every room shaped around the work that happens inside it.

We've upgraded from 35 to 58 recording and production studios and performance spaces for music, sound, film and visual media. Here what that looks like:

• 6 full recording studios with control room & production suites.
• An electronic music performance space with stage and spatial sound.
• A mastering studio.
• A large electronic music mixing studio.
• A Dolby Atmos suite.
• A multi-channel suite.
• Lightroom for VFX with two additional PC/Mac workstations – now 16.
• Film studio with infinity green screen.
• Sound stage film studio.
• Photography studio.
• Two acting & rehearsal rooms.
• Larger cinema with 92 seats (from 32 seats).
• Larger theatre with 90 seats (from 50 seats).
• Four computer labs, each one with 16 Mac workstations with specialist software.
• 14 hybrid production suites.
• Broadcast space for our student-run Etikett Radio.
• Expanded social area with kitchen (300m2).
• Social stage for talks and interdisciplinary performances.
• KALLE bonus: a supermarket on the ground floor and an accessible rooftop.

Class sizes will stay small and our spaces stay intimate. Your individual creative journeys are still the foundation of what we do.

“Catalyst joining KALLE is a significant addition to a building that already brings together some of the most interesting organisations in Berlin's creative and technology landscape. What we are building here at KALLE is not a co-working space or a creative campus in the conventional sense. It is a community of people who are serious about what they do and benefit from proximity to others who are the same. Catalyst fits perfectly into this long-term vision: our existing community includes SoundCloud, CODE University, and Rough Trade, and Catalyst brings a community that is actively engaged in some of the creative industries those organisations operate in. We look forward to welcoming Catalyst's students and community very soon."

- Hans Stier, partner at MREI, the planning and operating development partner for the KALLE project

Still Catalyst, now Neukölln

We're excited about our new neighbourhood. 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin's largest independent arts festival, takes over the entire district every June. Refuge Worldwide Radio, which you already know as a partner, is fifteen minutes on foot. Besides own cinema and performance spaces receiving big upgrades, the neighbourhood is full of independent cinemas and venues. And for those of you shooting on location, Neukölln's streets, parks and public spaces open up a completely different set of possibilities to what we have had at Funkhaus till now.

Most of the things you love about Catalyst won't change. Our team, our events, our student opportunities, our partners, our vibe. We're taking everything with us, except the walls.

We will miss our spaces at Funkhaus and are exceptionally proud to have host a student body made up of people from close to 100 countries in our 13 years here. They hold a lot of history, a lot of memories, a lot of community moments, a lot of fun and a lot of amazing work. We carry all of that with us. It's part of our story too. And what comes next pushes that story further.