You have to love the Swiss for enlisting some of the world's best-known architects, albeit homegrown ones (Herzog & de Meuron), to design something as rudimentary as a railway signal box. The copper cladding of this hulking structure, completed in 1999, is unmissable when arriving at SBB Basel station.
Zentralstellwerk
Basel
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.98 MILES
Showcasing the works of the adjoining, eponymous high-end furniture manufacturer, Vitra Campus comprises the dazzling Vitra Design Museum (of Guggenheim…
5.75 MILES
About 17km east of Basel, on the Rhine's south bank, Switzerland’s largest Roman ruins are the last remnants of a colony founded in 43 BC, the population…
3.92 MILES
This astounding private-turned-public collection, assembled by former art dealers Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, is housed in a long, low, light-filled, open…
0.79 MILES
Housing the most comprehensive collection of public art in Switzerland, this superb fine arts museum reopened in mid-2016 after updates to the existing…
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1.23 MILES
Designed by leading Ticino architect Mario Botta, this museum showcases the playful, mischievous and downright wacky artistic concoctions of sculptor…
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23.33 MILES
Architect Gaetano Matteo Pisoni restrained himself with the classical Italianate facade of Solothurn’s monolithic 18th-century cathedral, but went wild…
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23.39 MILES
To view centuries of Swiss art and regular temporary exhibitions, call by Aargau’s impressive house of fine arts, located about 250m south of the Altstadt…
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23.2 MILES
The centrepiece of Solothurn's Fine Arts Museum is Ferdinand Hodler’s famous portrait of William Tell (looking a bit like a red-haired, bearded Goliath in…
Nearby Basel attractions
0.67 MILES
Designed by world-renowned Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron, this angular glass commercial building (its name means 'Alsace Gate') was completed in…
0.71 MILES
Housed in the beautiful Haus zum Kirschgarten building (1780), this lovely museum features two floors of the house with rooms laid out immaculately in the…
3. Kunstmuseum Basel | Gegenwart
0.79 MILES
Down by the riverfront, this extension of Basel's Kunstmuseum has a focus on visiting exhibitions of contemporary art (1990s and later) and a small…
0.79 MILES
Housing the most comprehensive collection of public art in Switzerland, this superb fine arts museum reopened in mid-2016 after updates to the existing…
0.81 MILES
This multilevel museum contains Switzerland’s most comprehensive collection of ancient artefacts, dating from the heyday of the pharaohs in Egypt to Roman…
6. Schweizerisches Museum für Papier, Schrift und Druck
0.82 MILES
Set in an old paper mill astride a medieval canal and complete with a functioning waterwheel, the Paper Museum evokes centuries past, when a dozen mills…
0.83 MILES
With its riot of wacky machines spewing and shooting forth water, this zany fountain offers a taste of the madcap moving sculptures to be found in the…
8. Spielzeug Welten Museum Basel
0.88 MILES
Adults and kids alike love this fascinating and lovingly curated fantasy land claiming the world’s biggest collection of teddy bears and a slew of…