Gas boiler (youth center)

Youth culture center Gaskessel

The gas boiler in Bern is one of the oldest youth culture centers in Europe. Concerts, theater performances, discos , exhibitions, discussions, film nights and many other socio-cultural events have taken place there regularly since the early 1970s .

The entire system is located in the former gas reservoir of the city of Bern right next to the Aare and is divided into two spherical hemispheres. Due to the changing needs of the visitors, structural changes are constantly being made to the idiosyncratic architecture.

The gas boiler is operated by a sponsoring association, which is mostly run by young board members . The owner of the property is the city of Bern.

During the 1980s and 1990s, some of the guests consumed illegal and hard drugs ( heroin , cocaine , LSD ), but at the beginning of the new millennium this was reduced to the consumption of cannabis and alcohol . Paradoxically, alcohol has only been served in the gas boiler since the mid-1990s.

The gas boiler also offers many so-called “marginalized” young people working days with specific tasks and a defined wage through “day labor projects”. In addition, the gas boiler offers young people from the Bern region space for self-realization through concert organizations, art and theater projects. The threshold for joining the sponsoring association is therefore deliberately kept low. This social commitment was awarded the social prize by the Bürgi Willert Foundation in summer 2011.

In the mid-1980s, the Zaffaraya alternative housing estate was also present on the gas boiler area before it was relocated near the Bern-Neufeld motorway feeder.