Hunziken mill

View of the garden of the Hunziken mill in summer 2019

Meena Cryle & The Chris Fillmore Band in the Hunziken Mill. Photo: Marc Riesen (2014)

Lightning over the Hunziken mill. Photo: Carlo Tscholl (July 2019)

The Hunziken Mill team (June 2019)

The outside of the Hunziken mill (2009)

Concert of the cummerbubs in the mill

The Hunziken mill in Rubigen in the canton of Bern is an internationally known concert and cultural venue that has existed since 1976. Since then, over 4000 concerts with around 15,000 artists have taken place in the Hunziken mill. The cultural venue enjoys cult status, in particular because it houses an elaborately compiled hodgepodge of bizarre art objects and figures. Although the capacity is only 500 people, numerous internationally known musicians find their way here year after year.

history

The foundation walls of the Hunziken mill are among the oldest in the region and were first mentioned in 1480. The concert hall was founded by Peter Burkhart (1942–2014), also known as “Mühli-Pesche”. In 1973 he bought the Rubigen feed mill, ten days after discovering it by chance. He moved in with his wife, children and friends. The mill was now also a shared apartment , and the self-mixed feed was fed to its own fifty pigs, whose population would soon grow to five hundred. Burkhart trained as a qualified cattle dealer, was a fodder miller and pig farmer. Soon he had to sell crepes at Loeb-Egge in Bern because a rise in soy prices nearly bankrupted the small business.

When the demand for feed meal from Rubigen declined, Burkhart gradually converted the mill into a concert hall. The first event at the Hunziken mill took place in 1976. Burkhart traveled a long way to create a hodgepodge of bizarre objects and figures in the Hunziken mill - whether a fair organ, plastic figures, stuffed animals, old pinball boxes or gramophone funnels - there is nothing that cannot be discovered in the Hunziken mill. Burkhart was in charge of the Hunziken mill until summer 2011 before he emigrated to France . After a three-year legal battle with his successors, he and his family sold the building on December 6, 2014. Peter Burkhart died on Christmas 2014.

The property has been owned by two pension funds since the sale: The Gepabu Personalvorsorgestiftung and the Coopera Collective Foundation PUK bought the concert hall with the oven house and the former pigsty, both of which were converted into apartments, as well as a horse stable for 3.1 million francs. Since then, they have comprehensively renovated the historic property on the same scale, without losing the special charm of the location. Numerous artists who rely on institutions such as the Hunziken mill are insured with both pension funds.

The club itself has belonged to Mühle Hunziken Konzert AG since December 2014, which is owned by private individuals in Bern and has signed a 30-year lease for the concert hall with the property owners. The chairman of the board of directors is the Bern lawyer Thomas Bähler, and Christoph Fankhauser was the chairman of the management board until August 2019. Christoph “Chrigu” Stuber has been responsible for the club since the start of the 2019/2020 season. The new club management expanded and remodeled the restaurant and the outdoor area in various stages, especially in the area of gastronomy and for groups, for example with the separate “Bulloug” room, from which a huge round window allows a view of the stage.

The club operator organizes over 125 public events of various styles every year, plus around 25 private events. Numerous internationally and nationally known artists make regular guest appearances at the Hunziken mill, and many even stop here once a year. The Mühle Hunziken is also known as the "haven" for numerous well-known Bernese artists - for example, the seven concerts with the Swiss band Patent Ochsner in October 2019 were completely sold out a few minutes after they were released, and the band has already performed around 40 times in the Mühle Hunziken . Pioneers of “Berner Rock” such as Polo Hofer (1945–2017), who played around 70 concerts in changing formations in the Hunziken mill, and Hanery Amman (1952–2017) went in and out of the Hunziken mill. The Bern cult band Züri West has also performed more than 30 times in the Hunziken mill.

Artist

Since 1976, numerous internationally and nationally known artists have performed in the Hunziken mill and over 4000 concerts with over 15,000 artists took place. A list of all the artists since the founding year 1976 is listed on the website of the mill in Hunziken.