Fondation Beyeler Starts Phased Opening of Peter Zumthor Expansion
Fondation Beyeler will begin admitting visitors to its expanded museum ensemble on September 26, adding three Peter Zumthor buildings, new collection galleries, and a formerly private park. The opening is significant for how the museum can display its art and long-term loans, but it begins as a limited preview rather than full regular operation.
What Fondation Beyeler Is Opening on September 26
The official plan for the new ensemble adds the Wyss Museum, Ammann Pavilion, and Erlen Gatehouse to the Renzo Piano-designed museum in Riehen, near Basel. Rather than functioning as three interchangeable galleries, each addition has a separate role in the museum’s operation.
| Element | Before the expansion | After the expansion |
|---|---|---|
| Wyss Museum | No second museum building | About 1,500 square meters of galleries on three floors |
| Ammann Pavilion | No dedicated public pavilion | Free daytime lounge; evening cultural events |
| Erlen Gatehouse | Not part of the campus | Art logistics and staff workspaces |
| Beyeler Park | Existing museum grounds | Formerly private park added; total parkland doubles |
| Public access | Original museum in regular operation | Limited preview through January 14; full opening January 15 |
| Adult admission | CHF25 | CHF30 from October 18 |
The original Beyeler Museum remains unchanged and will continue to accommodate temporary exhibitions and collection presentations. The Wyss Museum adds galleries with natural light and large views of the landscape, while the gatehouse moves art handling and other operational work into a purpose-built structure connected underground to the new museum.
The expansion also turns the landscape into more of the collection route. The previously private, heritage-listed Erlengarten brings old trees and a water-lily pond into the public grounds. Works by Louise Bourgeois, Pierre Huyghe, Rachel Whiteread, and Fujiko Nakaya join the museum’s existing outdoor program; a garden by Fischli/Weiss is scheduled to follow in spring 2027.
What Has Actually Doubled—and What Has Not
Fondation Beyeler says both its park and the exhibition space available for the Beyeler Collection have doubled. That wording is precise: the institution is not claiming that its total gallery floor area has doubled.
A Keystone-SDA report published by SWI swissinfo.ch on September 23 states that the Wyss Museum’s approximately 1,500 square meters are being added to roughly 3,800 square meters in the existing building. On that baseline, total built exhibition space becomes about 5,300 square meters—an increase of approximately 39 percent, not 100 percent.
There is no contradiction between those figures. One measures all existing and new exhibition floor area; the other measures the portion available for collection displays. The practical change is therefore larger than the new building’s footprint alone suggests: Fondation Beyeler can devote substantially more space to its holdings and loans while continuing to mount temporary exhibitions in the Renzo Piano building.
The existing Fondation Beyeler museum, designed by Renzo Piano. Photograph by Warburg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
A 230-Work Exhibition Tests the New Display Model
The first test is Constellations, running from September 26, 2026, through September 5, 2027. Fondation Beyeler describes its approximately 230 works as the largest exhibition of the collection in the museum’s history. It extends through both museum buildings, the expanded park, and the repurposed historic structures rather than treating the Wyss Museum as an isolated new wing.
The selection combines the Beyeler Collection with recent acquisitions, gifts, and private loans. Announced artists range from Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, and Mark Rothko to Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Otobong Nkanga. The exhibition title refers to Calder’s 1943 Constellations, several of which will be shown, but it also describes a curatorial method: rooms and groups of works will change with the seasons.
That loan-based model predates the expansion. Fondation Beyeler’s current website gives differing collection totals, ranging from around 400 to more than 500 works, while separately noting 30 ethnographic objects and long-term loans from artists and partner collections including Daros and Anthax Collection Marx. Keystone-SDA additionally identified the Rudolf Staechelin Collection among the long-term loans that have enlarged what the institution can display.
The new building gives this mixed model greater scale, but it should not be mistaken for a comparable increase in museum ownership. Fondation Beyeler’s plan says works from its collection will be presented with private loans in both museum buildings; it does not say that every loan will remain continuously on view. The seasonally changing installation makes rotation part of the opening concept.
Fondation Beyeler’s Renzo Piano-designed museum in Riehen, photographed before the 2026 expansion. Photograph by Valeriaulalume, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, cropped.
The Preview Has Limited Access and a Higher Adult Price
The event on September 26 is the start of a preview phase, not the unrestricted opening of a fully normalized schedule. Fondation Beyeler says visitor numbers will be limited and the ensemble will not open on every day of the week through January 14, 2027. Regular daily operation begins January 15.
Pricing changes during that preview. In a report published September 24, WELTKUNST reported that adult admission would rise from CHF25 to CHF30 in mid-October. The museum’s ticket page gives October 18 as the effective date, making the increase 20 percent. Visitors aged 25 or younger remain eligible for free admission.
Not every part of the expanded ensemble is behind the museum ticket. The Ammann Pavilion is intended to operate as a freely accessible lounge during the day, with concerts, talks, films, and performances planned for evenings. The result is a more expensive ticketed museum alongside a larger public landscape and a new social space that can be entered without buying admission.
Fondation Beyeler’s garden with a sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly. Photograph by Warburg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
What the Expansion Establishes
Five points define the expansion:
- Fondation Beyeler has completed three separate Zumthor buildings with distinct gallery, public, and logistical functions—not one conventional museum wing.
- The Wyss Museum raises independently reported total gallery capacity by about 39 percent; the museum’s doubling claim applies specifically to parkland and space for collection displays.
- September 26 begins a restricted preview through January 14, with full daily operation scheduled for January 15.
- Constellations opens with around 230 collection works and loans across buildings and park, making the institution’s partnership with private collections central to the new display model.
- The initial arrangement is not permanent: the museum has announced seasonal changes, while preview opening days and ticket availability will remain variable.
Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.
Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.
Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team.
Choose Art in Context as a preferred source to see more of our reporting in Google Top Stories and other Google Search experiences.
Cite this Article
Isabella, Meyer, “Fondation Beyeler Starts Phased Opening of Peter Zumthor Expansion.” Art in Context. September 26, 2026. URL: https://artincontext.org/fondation-beyeler-peter-zumthor-expansion-opening-2026/
Meyer, I. (2026, 26 September). Fondation Beyeler Starts Phased Opening of Peter Zumthor Expansion. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/fondation-beyeler-peter-zumthor-expansion-opening-2026/
Meyer, Isabella. “Fondation Beyeler Starts Phased Opening of Peter Zumthor Expansion.” Art in Context, September 26, 2026. https://artincontext.org/fondation-beyeler-peter-zumthor-expansion-opening-2026/.
