3 Days in Basel — September 2026

Basel was the next stop after Paris — I started the solo trip, a roughly 3-hour train ride east. I arrived pretty late on the first day, so I didn't get to see much until the next morning.

 

Hostel

I stayed at a hostel in Aesch. The owner is a music producer and built a recording studio in the basement — pretty cool.

 

Getting Around

Basel SBB is the main train station, and there's a bike rental service right inside it — I picked up an e-bike from here for the trip.

 

Vitra Campus

Just across the border in Weil am Rhein, Germany, but close enough to Basel that it's a normal day trip. Vitra is a furniture company, and the whole campus exists because of a 1981 fire that destroyed most of the original factory — instead of just rebuilding, chairman Rolf Fehlbaum started commissioning a different architect for each new building. Over the decades that's brought in some of the biggest names in the field: Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, SANAA, Álvaro Siza, and more. I spent several hours just walking between buildings.

| Fire Station

Zaha Hadid's first completed building, from 1993 — Vitra commissioned it after the 1981 fire, though it hasn't been used as an actual fire station in years.

| Vitra Schaudepot

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron and opened in 2016, it's a dense, floor-to-ceiling display of pieces from the Vitra Design Museum's collection. This was the only museum open on campus when I visited, but it was impressive enough on its own.

An Eames office is set up inside the building.

An exhibition is set up next to the building.

| Dome

A geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, originally built in Detroit in 1978 and relocated to the Vitra Campus in 2000, where it's now used for temporary exhibitions.

| Blockhaus

A log cabin by artist Thomas Schütte from 2018, built from untreated Nordic pine — the twisted, asymmetric roof makes it look slightly off-balance from every angle.

| Diogene

A 6-square-meter micro-house designed by Renzo Piano in 2013, built to run entirely off-grid.

A couple of beehives sit next to it.

| Khudi Bari

Vitra's newest addition, completed in 2024. Designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, it's a demountable structure originally developed for flood-prone regions of Bangladesh.

| Vitra Slide Tower

A 30-meter viewing tower by artist Carsten Höller, built in 2014, with a corkscrew slide running down the middle. It's a bit high up...

| VitraHaus

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron and opened in 2010, it stacks a dozen house-shaped volumes on top of each other to form the campus's showroom. It's like a high-end version of IKEA — you can find almost every designer furniture piece here. Makes me wish there was one near where I live.

The Jingzi pendant lamp by Herzog & de Meuron, with a wavy silicone stem that glows and diffuses light along its whole length.

Top view of the Oudolf Garten

| Vitra Design Museum

Designed by Frank Gehry and opened in 1989, this was the building that kicked off the whole campus — Vitra's first star-architect commission after the 1981 fire. It was closed for construction the day I visited, so I didn't get inside — a good reason to come back to Basel.

A small studio outside the Vitra Design Museum.

| DHBW Lörrach

Wandering the campus, I found this school right next to the Vitra circle. It's DHBW Lörrach's architecture program — Germany's first dual-degree architecture program at a state university — and it's actually built inside Álvaro Siza's factory hall, renovated and opened in 2023. I was really impressed by the materials they used in the classrooms and studios.

 

Fondation Beyeler

Designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 1997, the museum sits in a park in Riehen, right on the edge of Basel. Long glass-and-stone galleries look straight out onto a pond and the surrounding garden, so the art and the landscape end up sharing the same room.

A couple was sitting nearby, having lunch and watching the cows graze in the pasture next door — a nice reminder of how rural the edges of Basel still are.

 

Goetheanum

A short train ride out to Dornach. The Goetheanum was designed by Rudolf Steiner as the world center for the Anthroposophical Society, and it's one of the strangest, most complete buildings I've been to — nothing about it is a straight line, down to the door handles and furniture inside.

 

Kunstmuseum Basel

The museum's newer extension, designed by Christ & Gantenbein and opened in 2016, is clad in a distinctive grey brick that shifts depending on the light. Kunstmuseum Basel itself holds the oldest public art collection in the world, dating back to 1661.

 

Jazz Campus

Basel's jazz school and concert venue, designed by local firm Buol & Zünd. Didn't get in, but I'd love to catch one of the shows on the poster wall sometime.

 

Warteck

A former brewery in the Gundeldingen neighborhood, now converted into studios and workspaces. The zigzagging concrete staircase bolted onto the courtyard facade is hard to miss.

 

Theater Basel

The main venue for the Basel theatre company, right on Theaterplatz.

There's a big old church right next to it — the Elisabethenkirche, built in the 1860s by Ferdinand Stadler.

 

Novartis Pavillon

The visitor center for the Novartis campus — a freeform glass shell wrapped in a diamond lattice, sitting on a small hill above the rest of the buildings. It's free to visit.

 

Kirche St. Anton

Built in 1927 by Karl Moser, this is considered one of the first churches in Europe built from reinforced concrete. The bell tower's stairwell is the best part — bare concrete and timber formwork left exposed, with small windows cutting light across the stairs.

I got scammed a little at first — I asked two girls if this was the entrance to the church, and they said yes. So I paid 2 euros and climbed what felt like a hundred stairs up to the bell tower... then spent about 3 minutes on the roof since it was honestly kind of scary up there. Big respect for whoever used to ring that bell every day.

 

Coffee

| Frühling

A specialty coffee shop I passed on a ride — good pie and espresso.

| Draft. Coffee

A bright, red-curtained spot that runs a small lunch menu alongside coffee.

 

Around the City

A few shots from biking around.

 

I dropped all these spots into a list below — it also has a few places I didn't get a chance to check out this time, so take a look if you want to visit them yourself.

Basel Google Maps list

 

Hope you like Basel! ◡̈