Art Museum Basel

In April 2016, the museum inaugurated a third venue across the street from the Hauptbau, to which it is connected by an underground passage: the Neubau by the local architects Christ & Gantenbein. It is designed to accommodate both special exhibitions and presentations of art from the collections. Construction of the new building was made possible by a public-private partnership: Dr. h. c. Maja Oeri donated the funds that enabled the Canton of Basel-Stadt to purchase the building plot, and the Laurenz Foundation contributed CHF 50 million toward the building costs of altogether ca. CHF 100 million.

Many elements of the Neubau quote the architectonic idiom of its older sibling across the street. The dialogue between the structures is most readily apparent in the new building’s monumental staircase beneath a central circular skylight, the rough scraped plaster in the foyer and stairwell, and the subtle colors of the brick façade.

The great special exhibitions are held in the skylighted galleries on the third floor. Treasures from the collection of art after 1950 are presented on the other gallery levels and in the passageway connecting the Neubau to the Hauptbau – with the exception of contemporary art, which is on view at the Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart. A branch of the shop in the Hauptbau is located on the Neubau’s ground floor.