Building Basel by Jill Starley-Grainger
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Around the world, certain cities are design meccas: Hong Kong, New York, London, Tokyo - Basel. It’s surprising that this small Swiss city of 190,000 people takes such an important place on the world stage, yet Basel and its environs have not only played host to seminal moments in modern architecture, such as the first completed building by Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, but it has also bred its own design heroes, including Herzog & de Meuron, the award-winning team behind Tate Modern in London and the Bird’s Nest Sports Stadium for the 2008 Olympics in China.
The city is now most known for its wealth of late 20th and 21st-century architecture, but long before this boom in modernity, Basel was giving life to some extraordinary buildings. Like most European cities, its first significant structure was the cathedral, Münster, built on the banks of the Rhine river, starting in the 11th century. A few minutes from its peaceful riverside location is the buzzing Marktplatz square, presided over by Rathaus, the city’s uber-red town hall. Work began on Rathaus in 1501, but it’s been adapted over the centuries so that it now contains many influences and styles – much like Basel itself.
Historic hospitality
Unusually for a city, Basel’s third historic landmark is a hotel - Les Trois Rois (The Three Kings). Situated on the banks of the Rhine, Les Trois Rois has played an important role in city since it was built in 1844. Named after a historic meeting of three rulers in Basel in 1026, Les Trois Rois itself has played host to everyone from Napoleon and Queen Elizabeth II to Pablo Picasso and the Rolling Stones.
Last year, the hotel reopened after a meticulous historic restoration. Stepping through its grandiose doors, you’re transported to a world of Belle Epoque glamour, where white-coated waiters pour champagne for women in ball gowns and world leaders share schnapps on the terrace over the Rhine. But scrape the surface, and all is not as it seems.
When the original hotel was built, rather than pay for marble and stone, the plaster walls and wooden pillars were painted with exquisite care to mimic the more expensive materials, and the restorers did the same. More importantly for guests, rooms decked out in extravagant Louis XVI style conceal all the elements necessary for modern luxury – underfloor heating, internet access, flat-screen TVs. “We have today a haven where one feels at ease in thoroughly historical authenticity,” says architect Christan Lang. “We have restored the soul to Les Trois Rois.”
Mad for Mod
Just as Les Trois Rois embraced its past while looking to the future, so has Basel itself. In the last three decades, the city has become a hotbed of architectural innovation, boosted in no small part by the extraordinary Vitra complex 20 minutes from Basel in Weil Am Rhien, Germany, but even more so by the city’s annual art event. For nearly 40 years, Art Basel, which takes place annually in June, has been the world’s foremost contemporary art fair. Its popularity has helped inspire and embolden both architects and those who commission them to push the boundaries of design.
In recent years, the city’s home-grown architects have become serious international players. Basel-based Diener & Diener are currently working on the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, and you can see their vibrant Forum 3, a multi-coloured glass building, at the Novartis pharmaceutical office complex in Basel, where American architect Frank Gehry’s latest project is also under construction.
More famous are locals Herzog & de Meuron. When they won the prestigious international Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 2001, one of the judges commented, “All of their work maintains the qualities associated with the best Swiss architecture: conceptual precision, formal clarity, economy of means, and pristine detailing and craftsmanship.”
They’ve worked on buildings throughout Basel, and the world, and you can glimpse their inventiveness at Basel’s renowned railway Central Switching Station, with its copper-clad exterior that appears to change colour as you move around it.
Art-itechture
The serene Foundation Beyeler is one of the most successful collaborations of art and architecture. It was designed in 1997 by Italian architect Renzo Piano, who believes that "a museum should attempt to interpret the quality of the collection and define its relationship with the outside world.”
Piano certainly achieved this at Beyeler, where the art and architecture work together to provide a contemplative experience. The interior is filled with natural light from the glass walls and a transparent roof that appears to float above the building. The rooms containing the excellent 20th-century art collection, including pieces by Picasso, Rodin, Warhol and Pollock, blend seamlessly with the gardens and sky beyond, showcasing the art in an ethereal manner.
Art and architecture work side by side at the Kunsthalle complex, home to the Contemporary Art Museum and the Swiss Architecture Museum. Each puts on a series of changing exhibitions, showcasing the best local and international art and architecture. To get a taste of the local art scene, check out the fountain next to the museums. One of the city’s most famous local artists, Jean Tinguely, created a series of his wacky kinetic sculptures that frolic all day in the water, providing a quirky modern foil to the sturdy 19th-century Kunsthalle buildings.
If all this high culture is getting too much for you, take refuge at the world’s smallest museum. Hoosesagg on Imbergasslein 31 features tiny changing collections for the museum-weary. The exhibitions are housed in a single, small window of a door on this picturesque street, the owner’s innovative way of dealing with the passers-by who kept peering into their private space. It’s this kind of lateral thinking that has put Basel firmly on the world map, despite its diminutive size.
Vitra
Sit back (in an Eames chair), relax (on a Corbusier lounger) and enjoy the ride around an architectural fantasy land. OK, so there are no roller coasters, and you’re only transport is your own two feet, but the buildings that make up the Vitra campus are about as close to an architectural theme park as you’re likely to find. Vitra the company produces designer furniture for homes, offices and public spaces, and it’s especially famous for its chairs. But for the last three decades, Vitra the campus in Weil Am Rhein, just 20 minutes by bus from Basel, has become an architectural wonderland.
Hop off the bus and onto a metal-grid seat at the bus stop, created by British homewares designer Jasper Morrison. Then take off for a journey through the whirls and swirls of the Vitra Design Museum – American architect Frank Gehry’s first project in Europe, built long before he’d even contemplated the Guggenheim in Bilbao. As you trundle up the sloping passageways past the exhibitions, take a moment to ponder the words of Brad Pitt, “I've got a few men I respect very much and one would be Frank Gehry. He said to me, 'If you know where it's going, it's not worth doing.' That's become like a mantra for me. That's the life of the artist." Deep, man.
Snap out of your reverie as you zoom under the colourful Balancing Tools sculpture, then slow to a crawl as you approach the long, lean Conference Pavilion. Powerful in its stark elegance, its Japanese starchitect Tadao Ando’s first building outside his home country.
The ride is nearing its end as you glimpse production halls by Gehry and British architect Nicholas Grimshaw, stopping off briefly to refuel at French architect Jean Prouve’s 1953 petrol station. Finally, come to a juddering halt at Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid’s 1993 fire station. A masterpiece of deconstructivism, it was the first built project for this architectural megastar, about whom it was famously – and understatedly - said that her “career has not been traditional or easy,” when given the international Pritzker Architecture Prize – the first woman to receive it. After decades of unrealized projects, Vitra gave her a chance, and it was the stepping board to her ascent to the dizzying heights of her current celebrity status. Dramatic though her building is, it didn’t function well as a fire station, so you can catch your breath on a stroll through its interior, which now houses changing architectural and art exhibitions.
Interior Motives
Basel is littered with modern masterpieces whose interior design is often as bold as its exterior, and that’s especially true of the city’s bars. Trendy types and design buffs regularly share cocktails on the river at Das Schiff, a passenger ferry converted into a restaurant, bar and nightclub in 2005. Andreas Künzi, one of the club owners, says, “We chose all the interiors with a 1960s/1970s flavour in mind. The lamps and chandeliers are all from the 1960s, and the restaurant tables and chairs are 1969 originals by Italian designer Vico Magistretti.”
Come here early evening for a drink in the glamorous lounge area or a meal in the restaurant, then head downstairs later to groove to urban music below deck.
If you want to party the night away in a more central location, try Atlantis Bar, favourite of the Basel and international glitterati since 1957. The recently revamped interior has given the club and restaurant a fashionable feel to match its clientele.
Nowhere in the city has a view like that from Bar Rouge on the 31st floor of Messe Tower. The bar’s interiors are, unsurprisingly, red, red, red – floors, furniture, ceiling. Peering out into the blue sky beyond, you can easily see into Germany and France as well as pick out some of Basel’s more interesting buildings, such as the modernist tower of St Antonius Church, built in 1925 and still shocking in its brutality today.
Fancy a nightcap? Try Campari Bar, whose interior transports you to a Sicilian square, Grenzwert, styled in 1960s shabby chic, or Eoipso, for its striking industrial glam.
Tempting Temple
Complete your design pilgrimage on a visit to the architect Le Corbusier’s astonishing Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, an hour from Basel. Built in 1955, it’s considered by many to be the most important structure of the 20th century and is the world’s first post-modern building.