Architecture
Beyeler Foundation: 120 Million Swiss Francs for a New Dimension
By Emmanuel Grandjean15 octobre 2026
Designed by Peter Zumthor, the extension to the Basel-based institution – entirely funded by private donations totalling 120 million – not only increases its exhibition space by 40 per cent but also doubles the size of its Park, the Foundation’s other star attraction.
In the rankings of Switzerland’s most visited art institutions, the Kunsthaus Zurich leads the way with 540,000 visitors a year. It is slightly ahead of the runner-up in this highly cultural field, namely the Beyeler Foundation, which attracts 509,000 people to Riehen, in the Basel countryside. It’s a safe bet that the challenger will soon take the lead, given its 2027 exhibition programme (Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois and Elisabeth Peyton – nothing but blockbusters) and, above all, with the official opening, on 14 January, of its new buildings designed by the architect Peter Zumthor, an adopted son of Graubünden but a native of Basel.
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An Additional 1,500 m2
Inaugurated in 1997, the foundation established by the Basel-based gallery owner and collector Ernst Beyeler was intended to host temporary exhibitions as well as the masterpieces collected by its owner, including a famous Water Lilies by Monet. Faced with phenomenal success, the 3,800 square metres of exhibition space designed by Renzo Piano soon proved insufficient. In 2016, a competition was launched to design an extension for the building. Ten years on, the Foundation now has an additional 1,500 square metres of space at its disposal – a 40 per cent increase.
However, architecturally speaking, Renzo Piano and Peter Zumthor do not exactly belong to the same school of thought. The flattened monolith with overhead lighting, built 29 years ago by the former, is now complemented by three buildings: one for administration; another dedicated to concerts, though open at all times for visitors to browse a catalogue or simply relax; and a third, the most spectacular – the Wyss Museum, named after the Foundation’s president and principal patron of this 120-million-franc project, which was entirely funded by private donations. A mineral-like building rising three storeys high, pierced by large bay windows that open out cinematically onto the fields, its façade displaying the slightly ochre colour of the Jura limestone from which it is constructed.
Nature as a Common Ground
It is, in fact, nature that ensures the harmony between these two styles, which are so different – both aesthetically and physically – and separated by a few dozen metres. Ernst Beyeler was so obsessed with the landscape that he had instructed Renzo Piano to open up his museum widely to the countryside. Zumthor takes a different approach, choosing to adapt his architecture to the existing vegetation by constructing the main building around the trees: an old ginkgo, a sequoia and a grove of plane trees, which dictated this Y-shaped layout for his project. With this new extension, the Foundation has, above all, doubled its green space and thus the opportunity for visitors to enjoy, free of charge, a sublime park dotted with sculptures – though not too many – in which artists will be warmly invited to contribute (the Fischli/Weiss garden will be on display from next spring). One final, highly telling horticultural detail: the small orangery, listed as a historic monument and owned by the municipality of Riehen, now houses a stylish garden centre where visitors can buy plants, planters and books to help them develop a green thumb, all set within a space designed by the designer and interior architect India Mahdavi.
‘Constellations’, the inaugural exhibition of the Beyeler Foundation’s extension, is open to a limited number of visitors until 14 January 2027 and by online booking only via the website: fondationbeyeler.ch
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