SelectionThe Volkshaus Basel exudes Swiss functional elegance. The city offers itself to aesthetes and gourmets from the 45 rooms of the hotel.
On the other side of the Rhine, Kleinbasel (“little Basel”) was the city’s industrial suburb. Very close to the river, in 1925, the Volkshaus (literally, the “house of the people”) housed both a brewery and a concert hall. Housing offices, the building has just been thoroughly restructured: at the maneuver, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, a local duo to whom we owe the National Stadium in Beijing or, already in Basel, the majestic Roche towers which rise nearly 200 meters high, like two sparkling sugar cubes.
On a more intimate scale, their subtle attention converged on the 45 rooms of the Volkshaus: they signed the wooden furniture, imagined the wallpaper inspired by a drawing of the XVIIand century and dotted the establishment with luminous LED globes that create a very special atmosphere. Each floor, lined in dark green, houses a collective minibar (coffee, tea, herbal tea and unlimited squares of chocolate), which frees up space in the uncluttered rooms, on the terrazzo floor. Neither parquet nor carpet underfoot but this cold and supremely elegant feeling.
In Switzerland, the thick mattress is covered with a simple white duvet (which warms without suffocating). Everything seems functional, design and harmonious. You would even think that there is no television, but it is hidden behind gray-green curtains. The bells of the neighboring church are ringing. The next morning, we will have breakfast in front of one of sculptor Barry Flanagan’s famous hares. After all, this is the city of Art Basel.
Volkshaus Basel, rebgasse 12-14. Rooms from 140 euros.
At 220 meters: take a break (sweetened or not)
Before going to discover the marvels of art and architecture, you can sit down in this vast tea room (a Konditorei very Germanic) to enjoy an espresso, or even a small cake. Since 1898, Beschle has been making pastries and chocolates. Eclairs, tartlets and Saint-Honoré are tempting (you can admire their production in the workshop on sight). Books are to leaf through, for those who wish to linger.
Beschle, Clarastrasse 4. Coffee and pastries from 5 euros. Open every day.
At 450 meters: marvel at the statuary
Basel has around forty museums (more than one per square kilometre!). This one is located in a former Dominican convent founded in the 13thand century. It exhibits the sculptures of the cathedral (replaced, on the building, by copies). The faces of the four evangelists, the Three Kings or the Virgin and Child, seen so close, are astounding. The vegetal decor of the Gothic sculpture evokes the Art Deco style, which would only come about five hundred years later. Some characters had their heads cut off in 1529, when Basel adopted the Reformation.
Museum Kleines Klingental, Unterer Rheinweg 26. Open Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, Sunday. 8 euros.
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