What Is Inside Fondation Beyeler’s New Peter Zumthor Expansion?

Fondation Beyeler’s expanded grounds opened to the public this weekend in Riehen, located just outside the city of Basel. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has added three buildings beside Renzo Piano’s existing museum, while a formerly private section of the park has opened to visitors.

New works by Louise Bourgeois, Pierre Huyghe, Rachel Whiteread and Fujiko Nakaya are among the first works visitors will encounter in the expanded park. They join pieces already installed there by Alexander Calder, Jenny Holzer, Philippe Parreno and others. Nearly 10,000 square metres of parkland have been made newly accessible, almost doubling the Beyeler Park’s area, while a garden designed by artist duo Fischli/Weiss will follow in spring 2027.

Each of Zumthor’s three new buildings plays a different role. The largest, the Wyss Museum, provides around 1,500 square metres of exhibition space over three floors. Visitors can see works from the museum’s collection alongside loans from private collections in inaugural exhibition Constellations, a display of more than 200 works extending across both museums, the park and the restored historic buildings. Major temporary exhibitions will continue in Piano’s museum, with solo shows devoted to Ruth Asawa, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois and Elizabeth Peyton following in succession over the opening year.

Between the museums and the historic buildings, the glass-and-oak Ammann Pavilion offers a different kind of encounter. Visitors can enter its lounge free of charge during the day, whether or not they have come to see an exhibition. In the evening, it will host concerts, performances, talks and film screenings for audiences of up to 250.

The third building, the timber-clad Erlen Torhaus, serves the parts of a museum that visitors rarely see. Artworks arrive on its ground floor before being moved below for exhibition preparation; workspaces occupy the upper floors. Zumthor has chosen to give these functions their own building, leaving the Wyss Museum primarily for art.

Zumthor’s buildings have been shaped by what was already on the site. The Wyss Museum’s irregular Y-shaped plan bends around an old ginkgo, a redwood and a group of plane trees. Inside, visitors move upwards through a sequence of galleries, with windows framing different views of the landscape along the way. Locally quarried Jura limestone appears in its stairs, floors, walls and rammed-concrete façade.

The architect has described the museum as a new villa for a park separated from its original house. His pavilion, by contrast, is light and open to the grounds. Together, the additions offer new ways to move between art, buildings and landscape.

Born in Basel and raised in nearby Oberwil, Zumthor knew the paths around Riehen long before this commission. Although he has never designed a building in the canton of Basel-Stadt, the project brings him back to the region. “I’m back in the region after so many years,” he said in an interview released by the foundation. “This really means a lot to me.”

Funded entirely by private donors, the expansion has limited tickets and opening days until 14 January 2027. The full grounds are scheduled to open daily from 15 January.