Guide to Museums in:


Basel

Geneva

SWITZERLAND

BASEL MUSEUMS

The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the largest and most significant public art collection in Switzerland, and is listed as a heritage site of national significance. Its collection is distinguished by an impressively wide historic span, from the early 15th century up to the immediate present. Its various areas of emphasis give it international standing as one of the most significant museums of its kind. These encompass: paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600 and on the art of the 19th to 21st centuries. The Kunstmuseum also possesses the largest collection of works by the Holbein family. In the realm of more recent and contemporary art, the collection maintains substantial complexes of works by Swiss, German, Italian, and American artists, including including Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Georg Baselitz, A.R. Penck, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Jonathan Borofsky, Roni Horn, Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Enzo Cucchi, Walter Dahn, Martin Disler, Siegfried Anzinger, Leiko Ikemura, Markus Raetz, Robert Therrien, Rosemarie Trockel and Robert Gober.

For more information and enquiries please contact Kunstmuseum Basel, St. Alban-Graben 16, 4010 Basel, Switzerland, Tel: +41 (0)61 206 62 62, E-mail: pressoffice@kunstmuseumbasel.ch

Kunstmuseum Basel
Copyright © Wladyslaw Sojka
Photograph taken by Wladyslaw

The Museum of Cultures Basel (German: Museum der Kulturen Basel) is a Swiss museum of ethnography with large and important collections of artifacts, especially from Europe, the South Pacific, Mesoamerica, Tibet, and Bali. It is a heritage site of national significance. In 1844 the museum, still without a permanent home, received hundreds of ancient Mexican ceramics and statues collected by Lukas Vischer of Basel. It remains one of the most notable European collections of ancient American art. Recent exhibitions on Bhutan (1998), Tibet (2001), and Bali (2002) have highlighted the museum's exceptional Asian and Oceanian collections. With about 300,000 objects and a similar number of historic photographs, the museum is the largest of its kind in Switzerland and one of the biggest in Europe. It also serves the canton of Basel-City by documenting and preserving the local cultural legacy.

For more information and enquiries please contact Museum der Kulturen, Münsterplatz 20, 4051 Basel, Tel: +41 (0)61 266 56 00, E-mail: info@mkb.ch

Entrance to The Museum of Cultures, Basel
Photograph taken by Basmus

The Natural History Museum of Basel houses wide-ranging collections primarily focused on the fields of zoology, entomology, mineralogy, anthropology, osteology and paleontology. Its mission is to expand, conserve, explore, document and communicate the over 7.7 million objects in its holdings, which are conceived as an “Archive of Life”. It regularly presents special exhibitions on current topics, offers special events, guided tours and excursions and contributes to various national and international research projects. The museum is a heritage site of national significance.

For more information and enquiries please contact Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Augustinergasse 2, CH 4051 Basel, Tel: +41 61 266 55 00, E-mail: nmb@bs.ch

Natural History Museum of Basel

The Basel Historical Museum is one of the largest and most important museums of its kind in Switzerland, and a heritage site of national significance. The museum is divided into four sections (buildings), three of which are within the city of Basel. These are Barfüsserkirche, Haus zum Kirschgarten and the Musikmuseum. The fourth section, the Coach and Carriage Museum lies slightly outside Basel, in the neighbouring town of Münchenstein.

Barfüsserkirche houses the Upper Rhine’s most comprehensive cultural history collection and the display area covers 6,200 square meters. The exhibition presents objects documenting handicraft traditions and everyday culture from ages past. Its focus is on the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance up to the Baroque period. Most of the Haus zum Kirschgarten exhibition rooms are dedicated to showing typical common living space in Basel during the 18th and 19th century. Shown are varying furnitures, paintings, porcelain and toys and has been extended by a professional collection. The Musikmuseum focuses on instruments from the 16th to the 20th century. The Coach and Carriage Museum concentrates on coaches and sleighs from the 18th to the 20th century that belonged to Basel family estate. It documents transport, mobility and is an attest to the excellent workmanship of Basel's coachbuilders during this period.

For more information and enquiries please contact Historisches Museum Basel, Direktion und Verwaltung, Steinenberg 4, CH - 4051 Basel, Tel: +41 61 205 86 00, E-mail: historisches.museum@bs.ch

Basel Historical Museum, Coach and Carriage Museum
Photograph taken by Huligan0

The Skulpturhalle Basel is a museum in Basel, Switzerland, featuring cast replicas of antique sculpture. With around 2,000 casts it is the largest collection of its kind in the country, having tripled in size between 1985 and 2010. The unique "Parthenon Project" assembles casts of every surviving sculptural remnant from the Parthenon Temple in Athens, and exhibits them so as to demonstrate their original arrangements. Also in the exhibition is an array of architectural models on a scale of 1:20.

For more information and enquiries please contact Skulpturhalle Basel, Mittlere Strasse 17, CH-4056 Basel, Tel: +41 (0)61 261 52 45

Entrance to The Skulpturhalle Basel
Photograph taken by Basmus

The Dollhouse Museum in Basel is the largest museum of its kind in Europe. The museum is located at Barfüsserplatz in the city center. The museum displays over 6,000 exhibits (teddy bears, dolls, play shops, dollhouses and miniatures) in arranged vignettes. It also regularly organizes special exhibitions on individual themes. In particular, the teddy bear collection is unique the world over in terms of variety and quality.

For more information and enquiries please contact Puppenhausmuseum, Steinenvorstadt 1, CH-4051 Basel, Tel: +41 (0)61 225 95 95, E-mail: sina@phm.ch

Dollhouse Museum in Basel
Photograph taken by Basmus