Basel's museums

Map of 8 locations in Basel, Switzerland

Basel keeps nearly forty museums for fewer than 200,000 residents, and the city's own register quietly explains why so many of them share the date 1661: that is the year the city bought the Amerbach Cabinet and made it public, and the art, antiquities, natural history and history houses all descend from it. What follows traces that split inheritance across the Rhine, from the Barfüsserkirche to a kinetic-sculpture museum on a boat landing, and out to Riehen where Peter Zumthor's new buildings are opening in stages.

Places in this collection

  • Historisches Museum Basel – Barfüsserkirche — A Franciscan church turned museum, holding art and craftsmanship of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period from Basel and the Upp…
  • Naturhistorisches Museum Basel — The collections cover zoology, entomology, mineralogy, anthropology, osteology and palaeontology, and the house runs research alongside its…
  • Cartoonmuseum Basel — Caricature, cartoons and comics, shown in temporary exhibitions rather than a standing display, in a house on St. Alban-Vorstadt since 1979…
  • Museum Tinguely — Opened in 1996 for the kinetic machines of Jean Tinguely, shown with work by his contemporaries in permanent and changing exhibitions. It s…
  • Kunsthalle Basel — Contemporary and avant-garde art in temporary exhibitions, with a programme of lectures, performances and film and video screenings alongsi…
  • Kunstmuseum Basel — The holdings run from Upper Rhine art of 1400 to 1600 through to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in permanent and temporary hangs a…
  • Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig — Ancient art and material culture of the Mediterranean and the Near East, shown in both permanent and changing displays, with the Ludwig col…
  • Fondation Beyeler — Peter Zumthor's extension to Renzo Piano's museum building in Riehen began opening to the public in stages from 26 September 2026, with the…

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