Kunstmuseum
The planet’s premier watch and jewellery trade fair is a horologista’s Davos, the wristwatch Coachel la. A five-day traipse of Baselworld’s sprawling, 141,000 square metres of immaculate Swiss exhibition space will do serious damage to the soles of your Guccis, while the sheer scale of choice and variation – around 2,100 marques and exhibitors from over 45 countries – will play havoc with your sanity and critical faculties. So, to regain some semblance of calm and perspective visitors will be needing a daily blast of well-earned local culture as a reward for every seven-hour session spent trawling the stands. Here is our alternative-Basel guide…
1. Museum of Cultures
© Museum der Kulturen Basel
From their main office in Basel, the cutting-edge architects Herzog & de Meuron have designed London’s Tate Modern extension, San Francisco’s de Young Museum, Munich’s the Allianz Arena and the impressive exhibition halls that play host to Baselworld itself. On a somewhat smaller scale, the talented partnership’s scaly addition to the roof at the entrance of the city’s Museum der Kulturen Basel (Museum of Cultures) is still a sun glinting wonder. Housing permanent exhibitions on the golden age of exploration and the Basel Carnival, the 125 year old museum is currently offering a fascinating insight into the culture and history of secrecy; mkb.ch
2. Fondation Fernet-Branca
Erasmus von Rotterdam Hans Holbein d.J. Bildnis des schreibenden Erasmus von Rotterdam, 1523 © Kunstmuseum Basel
Nietzsche in Basel Johannes Grützke Böcklin, Bachofen, Burckhardt und Nietzsche auf der mittleren Rheinbrücke in Basel, 1970 © Sammlung von Bartha, Basel / ProLitteris, Zürich
You’ll need your passport (and Euros in your wallet) to visit the French town of Saint- Louis, just over the border. Here you’ll find an old Fernet-Branca distillery converted into an impressive 1,500 square metres of contemporary art space; fondationfernet-branca.org
3. Kunstmuseum
© juliansalinas.ch
Back in 1661, the city of Basel purchased 20 Holbein canvases, presumably as an investment (this is fiscal powerhouse Switzerland, after all). But the venture capital experiment yielded an unexpected benefit – the words ‘art’ and ‘Basel’ became a globally recognised international brand with the now world-renowned Art Basel fair (first founded in 1970) and appearing as offshoots in Miami and Hong Kong. Basel still has a lot to offer a culture-hungry art groupie. To see the Holbeins, head to the Kunstmuseum. Next to work by Rembrandt, Goya, Gauguin, Renoir, Chagall and Van Gogh you’ll find more modern, cubist and American paintings. The gallery is also home to one of its premier restaurants; Restaurant Kunsthalle’s menu is classic Swiss dishes alongside French and Italian-inspired plates. Enjoy an aperitif at the Campari Bar then brave the March chill and order a fondue in the museum garden’s chalet; kunstmuseumbasel.ch
4. Fondation Beyeler
© Photo Mark Niedermann beyeler arch def
With exhibitions both inside and outside its elegantly-designed Renzo Piano structure, the Fondation Beyeler boasts a permanent collection that includes work by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso… all exhibited with juxtaposed nonchalance alongside more contemporary pieces and rare tribal art from Africa and Oceania. In the garden there are sculptures from Ellsworth Kelly and Alexander Calder. The current showstopper presents two extraordinary protagonists of modern art; Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, friends and rivals whose creative visions shaped art from the latter half of the twentieth century to the present day; fondationbeyeler.ch
5. Vitra Museum
© Urheberrechte Bettina Matthiessen
Alberto Giacometti sculpture © 2017 FondationGiacometti/ProLitteris, Zürich Foto: Robert Bayer, Basel
Fans of modernist furniture should take a 20-minute train and bus ride across the German border to visit the spectacular Frank Gehry-designed Vitra Design Museum at Charles- Eames-Strasse. Something of an architecture geek’s hotspot, the museum is next door to the Vitra Factory designed by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw and adjacent to Zaha Hadid’s Vitra Fire Station; design-museum.de
