Museum der Kulturen
The Museum der Kulturen Basel goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Replacing the Augustinian monastery on the Münsterhügel, the classicist building by architect Melchior Berri opened in 1849. The “Universal Museum,” as it was then called, was the city’s first museum building. Designed to house both the sciences and the arts, it now holds one of the most important ethnographic collections in Europe, thanks largely to continuing gifts and bequests. In 1917, with holdings of some 40,000 objects, an extension by architects Vischer & Söhne was added. A second extension was projected in 2001 to accommodate what had, by now, become holdings of some 300,000 objects. Modifications would include an entrance especially for the Museum, thereby giving it a new identity. Extending the building horizontally would have meant decreasing the size of the courtyard, the Schürhof. Instead, the Vischer building of 1917 has been given a new roof. Consisting of irregular folds clad in blackish green ceramic tiles, the roof resonates with the medieval roofscape in which it is embedded, while functioning at the same time as a clear sign of renewal in the heart of the neighborhood.
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