From the early EBM and house sounds played at Dorian Gray during the 1980s, through becoming the birthplace of trance at The Omen in the 1990s to the electro-house and minimal styles being pioneered at clubs like Monza and Robert Johnson today, Frankfurt has long been as important to dance music as it has to Germany's economy: a city where fresh ideas are catalysed and then minted into shiny new dancefloor currencies.

However, it's arguably Cocoon that has been the most consistent and most important since it opened in 2004. The baby of Sven Väth, who himself cut his teeth DJing at Dorian Gray and The Omen, Cocoon has taken the legacy of those clubs and updated it with a style that's not so much 21st as 25th century.

Few clubs have such an instant 'wow!' factor. Strikingly futuristic, there's almost too much to take in, with psychedelic visuals spiralling over the vast membrane and projection screens and the crowd on the dancefloor, whilst the restaurant and side rooms like Micro are full of shimmering lights and drapes, not to mention the famous Cocoon pod seating, straight outta the Starship Enterprise.

But the real sensory overload occurs with the music as well, and if you're searching for the reason why techno was reborn to take over clubs across the world in the middle of this decade then you'll find it directly beneath the raised dais of a DJ booth surrounded by 1500 other clubbers in Cocoon's main room.

One of the most colourful party animals in clubland, the music at Sven's 'Organic Electronics' residency on Fridays seems to represent the man's personality writ large; as dedicated to innovative new sounds as it is to unbridled hedonism in equal measure for the benefit of both the techno trainspotters and the pure pleasure-seekers. It's a style and attitude he's exported to Ibiza and on his worldwide tours, but it's at his own club that you're sampling it straight from the source.

Yet whilst Sven might be the ringmaster at this crazy circus he doesn't always steal the show, with his friends such as DJ Hell, Richie Hawtin and Ricardo Villalobos all having played spectacular sets here.

Playing Cocoon has become both a rite-of-passage and weighted with expectation for any techno DJ, as was the case for Guy Gerber when he spun his debut set there.

"When I finally got there I was even more impressed that I thought I would be, especially as I had the chance to see the club when it was empty and before the action started," he says.

"Although it looks really expensive it isn't over the limit. I've experienced some crazy moments there. It's a really industrial underground spot and it has the best soundsystem compared to all the other places I've played."