The Fondation Beyeler is expanding its premises and reimagining the concept of a museum
The institution is being revitalised by bringing together art, architecture and nature. Thanks to a decade of hard work by the founders, donors, the city and the canton
Key points
The Beyeler Foundation in Basel, one of the world’s most admired museums, inaugurated a spatial and conceptual extension to its complex on Saturday 26 September. Three new buildings, designed by the Basel-based architect Peter Zumthor, complement the building by Renzo Piano, completed in 1997, adding new exhibition spaces for the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions, new offices for museum staff and a concert hall. In addition, new spaces have been created within the existing historic buildings, including a music listening room, a conservatory and a workshop studio. The purchase of the land, the construction of the buildings and the running of the museum in its early years required an investment of 120 million francs, financed entirely through private funds, and nearly ten years of work, with a two-year delay in completion due to Covid.
A conceptual extension
But this is not merely a matter of expanding the physical spaces for a collection that has grown from 180 to 400 works and an audience that has increased from an expected 100,000 to more than 500,000 people, but rather an update of the concept of the museum and its functions in the present day. The new complex, in fact, conceives the museum not only as a place to admire works of art, but also to stroll, listen to music, read a book and contemplate nature, in an environment where art, architecture and nature blend seamlessly together. A place to be experienced. “I’m drawing on my own personal experience,” says the director Sam Keller, former director of Art Basel, who has been at the helm of the Foundation for 18 years. “When I go to visit a museum, I want to spend hours admiring the art, but at the same time I want to take a stroll, rest, have something to eat or drink, and check my messages. We must regard people as human beings and not merely as museum visitors.”
New features at the museum
Apart from the exhibition spaces, there is no charge for entry to the rest of the Foundation’s premises. The auditorium, which hosts concerts and events in the evenings, becomes a cosy lounge during the day where visitors can read, work or simply relax. The workshop space is freely accessible and contains materials for ‘do-it-yourself’ workshops for families. The listening room features comfortable sofas, a high-quality sound system and a collection of two thousand records and artist covers specially acquired by the Foundation. In the Orangerie, the designer India Mahdavi was commissioned to design a small greenhouse featuring plant species resilient to climate change, alongside a shop selling plants, pots and books on the subject.
The inaugural exhibition
The exhibition marking the opening of the new spaces is a display of the collection, but nothing is permanent in the new museum: over the coming months, the works will be replaced, partly in line with the changing seasons. The new exhibition building is called the Wyss Museum in honour of Hansjörg Wyss, chairman of the Beyeler-Stiftung – the organisation behind the Fondation Beyeler – and the main benefactor of the new building, which was designed to preserve the ancient trees, with no corridors and a terrace built to allow visitors to step outside and experience the surrounding environment.
Back in the 1990s, Renzo Piano had been chosen partly because he was the architect of the Centre Pompidou, the museum that, more than any other, had embodied the idea of democratising contemporary art institutions. Today, the entrance to the Beyeler’s new art building invites visitors to come in and enjoy the first works on display without having to pay an admission fee: “Most museums don’t have art in the foyer,” says Sam Keller, “they have the ticket office, the shops, the toilets, the cloakroom. We want the first thing they encounter to be art.” And so here we find Wolfgang Tillmans – an artist who features prominently at the Beyeler – in dialogue with a sculpture by Charles Ray, ten “cylinders” by Roni Horn (both new acquisitions) and with Monet’s large water-lily triptych, the work around which the first building was conceived. “It’s not out of the question that I’ll go back there,” said Keller, “nothing is set in stone. It’s a bit of a litmus test to see if the building works and whether it will bring us luck, just like the other building did!”
