Fondation Beyeler begins phased opening of expansion costing around £109.7m
Peter Zumthor’s three new buildings add 1,500 sq. m of gallery space, while the enlarged park opens with visitor numbers initially restricted.
Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, near Basel, has begun a phased opening of an expansion designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. The project cost around SFr 120m, or £109.7m, according to The Art Newspaper, and combines new exhibition space with an enlarged public park.
The main addition, the Wyss Museum, adds about 1,500 sq. m of exhibition space over three floors. It complements the 3,800 sq. m Renzo Piano museum, which opened in 1997. The foundation says the building will chiefly show its own collection alongside works from closely connected collections. A separate Ammann Pavilion is a daytime public lounge and venue for concerts, talks, films and performances; the Erlen Gatehouse provides offices and art-logistics facilities.
Zumthor told The Art Newspaper that the original brief envisaged one large building, but that he preferred separate structures because he likes museums that ‘only serve art’. The Wyss Museum consequently has no reception area, with visitors entering directly into the displays. Its Y-shaped plan was designed to retain existing trees, including a mature ginkgo, giant sequoia and plane trees, the foundation says. Regional Jura limestone is used in its façade and interiors.
The park has doubled to nearly 20,000 sq. m, according to The Art Newspaper, through the opening of the previously private, heritage-listed Erlengarten. It includes works by Pierre Huyghe, Rachel Whiteread and Louise Bourgeois’s 1999 ‘Maman’. The foundation also says a fog sculpture by Fujiko Nakaya has been added to the existing park.
The opening exhibition, ‘Constellations’, brings together 150 Modern and contemporary works from the Beyeler collection and closely affiliated collections, including the Daros Collection. It was scheduled to run until 5 September 2027, with displays across the buildings and park changing partly with the seasons.
From 26 September 2026 to 14 January 2027, access is being introduced gradually, with fewer visitors to paying exhibitions and opening reduced from seven days to five each week. Sam Keller, the foundation’s director, told The Art Newspaper that the restriction was intended to help the institution learn from visitors and improve its processes. The foundation plans to resume daily opening from January 2027.
