About Catalyst Berlin Founder David Louis Puttick

David Louis Puttick

School founder

While the whole team feels a close bond to our school, it is with founder David Louis Puttick that the feeling runs the deepest. It really was his baby! From 1998, he was a director of the original dBs Music in the UK, when they built the first studio themselves, literally, from the ground up. David started researching the dBs Berlin (now Catalyst) project in 2011 – and the rest is history.

Considering himself European, first, and English, second, David is no longer involved operationally with Catalyst but still supports the project and has regular conversations with Nina the new director. David is busy with a new creative project which will one day provide an interesting partner for Catalyst in Spain. 

The former musician, songwriter and sound engineer established our Berlin centre “to create a space where creative minds could be inspired to grow their own greatness and make a huge impact on the world.” This new project whilst completely different in output, is fundamentally continuing with similar intentions.

David says that one of the things that most excites him in life is “the ability of human beings to overcome horrendous obstacles and still be capable of creating moments of great beauty. The film Life is Beautiful comes to mind.” His favourite art pieces are Giacometti’s Walking Man sculpture and Rothko’s series of maroon paintings. Map of a Human Heart is his film of choice. But when it comes to the music he loves, there is, quite unsurprisingly, “way too much to mention!”

More from David: