Opening: 28/11/2025, 7 PM
A cooperation between S AM and the Association of Housing Cooperatives Northwestern Switzerland.
The exhibition presents cooperative housing regionally and nationally as a laboratory of non-profit-oriented cohabitation from which the entire city can benefit.
26.9.2025:
5.30 PM Book Launch, 7 PM Opening
The Stiftung Architektur Schweiz SAS (Swiss Architecture Foundation) presents the second edition of the Swiss Architecture Yearbook (available from September 26)!
An independent selection committee chose 30 projects and four special mentions from a pool of 158 nominations. The accompanying exhibition at the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel showcases Baukultur from all regions of Switzerland. The show is an invitation to reflect on central questions in contemporary architecture: Which topics are relevant today? Which projects demonstrate exemplary solutions? And what might the future hold for building in Switzerland?
Exhibition Curators: Andreas Ruby and Yuma Shinohara
An Exhibition by the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum in Cooperation with the Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation (Prof. Dr. Silke Langenberg), ETH Zurich.
Preservation is progressive: In current efforts to shift towards more sustainable building practices (known in German as the Bauwende, or ‘building turnaround’), preservation and maintenance of the existing building stock play a central role. The alteration or conversion of an existing building is considerably more resource-efficient than a comparable new build. This is leading to changes in the nature of architecture itself: where the focus used to be on new construction, building upon the built is increasingly considered the future of the discipline.
Opening: 18/10/2024, 7 PM
The exhibition 'Soft Power: The Brussels Way of Making the City' traces Belgium's journey to becoming an internationally renowned hotspot for contemporary architecture and urban planning. The show sheds light on the framework conditions that have given rise to a high-quality building culture in Brussels and encouraged a new generation of architects to participate in its urban development.
Curators: Roxane Le Grelle, Andreas Kofler (S AM)
Szenography: Asli Çiçek
An exhibition of S AM Swiss Architecture Museum in cooperation with the Bouwmeester Maître Architecte (BMA) and with support of Brussels Capital Region.
Opening: 24/5/2024, 7 PM
In cooperation with the Professional Group for Architecture of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects SIA and the Architectural Council of Switzerland
The exhibition provides a unique glimpse into the future of Swiss architecture: In presenting the winning projects from the two previous editions (2022/2023) of the national master’s thesis competition ‘SIA Master's Prize’, this show introduces ambitious visions by young architects that also provide exciting input for architectural practice. Finally the exhibition provides for the first time a complete map of the Swiss landscape of architectural education.
Unbuilt Architecture in Switzerland
Due to a change in our exhibition calendar as well as to accommodate the large interest in the show, the exhibition ‘What if’ will be extended until 5 May 2024.
Lost, rejected, abandoned or altered... There is a vast number of architectural designs that continue to be talked about in Switzerland, even though they have never been built. The S AM takes a look back at them and constructs a utopian-dystopian image of what Switzerland could have been.
5.15–7 PM: Book Launch (Location: Foyer Public, Theater Basel)
7 PM: Exhibition Opening (Location: S AM Swiss Architecture Museum)
For the first time, Switzerland has its own architecture yearbook. Properly Swiss – in English and three national languages. SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook!
SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook will be released biennially from 2023 onwards. Curated by the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum and the magazine werk, bauen+wohnen.
An accompanying travelling exhibition will start on the 8th of September 2023 at the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum. This will promote discussion of the book’s content in Switzerland and abroad, fuelling the debate on Swiss architecture.
Opening: 31/3/2023, 7 PM
Bêka & Lemoine’s ‘Homo Urbanus’ series portrays the public spaces of 10 world cities and the local singularities of global coexistence. 10 films invite visitors to take in the rhythm of different space-time sequences and observe our individual and group behaviour as urban animals.
‘Make Do With Now’ sheds light on an emerging generation of architects and urban practitioners in Japan. Largely entering professional practicefollowing the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear di-saster, this generation is developing a range of critical, ecological, and social approaches that creatively ‘make do’ – with limited resources, found materials, and existing spaces – while seeking appropriate responses to the urgent problems of the present.
Opening: 2/9/2022, 7 PM
Curated by Countdown 2030
In Switzerland, over 500 kilograms of construction waste are produced every second through the demolition of buildings. The building industry is thus responsible for 84 percent of waste in the country.
Everyone seems ‘to know’ Naples, even those who have never been there: its setting, its sounds, its people, its tastes, its informality and, not least, its stories, shaped by the fervour with which the inhabitants live this city. As numerous as these narratives are reproduced in literature, music, or film, countless stories about eras, styles, and uses also overlap in the city's architecture.
Opening: 19/11/2021, 7 PM
Vilified by some, adored by others – one thing is certain: concrete is everywhere. But what do we actually talk about when we talk about this divisive material? From fluid to solid, hidden to exposed, component to monolith – concrete is something with many forms and transformations, as many associations as applications.
A coproduction by S AM, gta Archiv / ETH Zürich, Archives de la construction moderne / EPF Lausanne, Archivio del Moderno dell’Academia di Architettura / USI
In architecture, a ‘mock-up’ refers to a demonstration model that reproduces a fragment of a building in full size, using the same materials as the eventual finished product. These models help to better understand the detailing of a building before actual construction begins. But what if mock-ups are not understood as merely by-products of architecture, but as artefacts in their own right, in possession of an experimental or even poetic potential that goes beyond their purely technical function?
An exhibition by the Architecture Museum of the TU Munich adapted and expanded by S AM together with the Institute of Architecture FHNW.
This exhibition presents architecture and infrastructural projects in São Paulo from the 1950s to today, focussing on how architecture interweaves with the city and how these structures provide safe and inclusive spaces of encounter through various publicly accessible functions. An exhibition by the Architekturmuseum der TU München, adapted and expanded by the S AM together with the Institute of Architecture FHNW.
Admission: Pay what you wish!
What role can architecture play in mediating between the past and the future? This is a question that the architect Tsuyoshi Tane (b. Tokyo, 1979) has consistently engaged with throughout his international body of work. Each project by the Paris-based practice Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects begins with an intensive research phase meant to excavate the memories embedded in a place and integrate these into the creative process: a method the architect terms the ‘Archaeology of the Future’. This exhibition sheds light on his creative process by bringing together his collections of reference images, sketches, objects and models.
What will Basel look like in 30 years? The forum for urban development ‘Basel 2050’ will examine this question by presenting and putting up for discussion various ideas for preserving and developing building culture as well as spaces for living.
A coproduction of S AM and the Bureau for Urban Development and Architecture of the Canton Basel-City Construction and Transport Department.
extended until 30/8/2020
Much of the work of architecture takes place before and after the actual act of construction, as architects probe the conditions governing the territories in which they are intervening. In a process similar to that of investigative journalism, they collect pieces of evidence, analyse them and synthesise them into a narrative.
Vernissage: 14 October 2019, 7 PM
Auction: 26 October 2019, 11 AM
The S AM Swiss Architecture Museum is celebrating its 35thbirthday this year. This retrospective traces the development of the museum, bringing together publications, posters by Claudiabasel and artefacts from the over 170 exhibitions put on by the institution to date. The archival materials will be complemented by a collection of architectural drawings, models and other ephemera gifted to the museum by its members and supporters for this occasion. At the end of the exhibition, these “birthday gifts” will be sold in an auction benefitting the museum.
25/5/-29/9/2019
Opening: 24/5/2019, 7 pm
‘Swim City’ is the first exhibition to draw attention to a particular contemporary phenomenon in urban space: river swimming as a mass movement. Swiss cities have played a pioneering role in the development of this activity in the last few decades, gradually making the river accessible as a natural public space in the built environment.
Developed with support from the Basel City Cantonal Department of Construction and Transport.
In Switzerland, the concept of density has noticeably negative connotations. This negative image has to be corrected. The exhibition will demonstrate what density actually means, namely sensible utilisation of buildable territory.
Opening: 28/09/2018, 7 PM
With speeches by Andreas Ruby (S AM), Sarah Graham (agps), Joris van Wezemael (SIA)
Today, the half-life of buildings is decreasing rapidly. When their function changes, they are often simply replaced. However, criticism of this spatial throwaway culture is growing. An ever-increasing number of architects are once again investigating structures' potential for transformation and, in their reinterpretation, discovering very distinct poetic potential and scope for experimentation.
From a diverse range of very different projects, three independent positions were selected. What they all have in common is that the investigative process is not just the initiator, but an essential component, of the transformation.
With: agps architecture in collaboration with Jenny Rodenhouse: 99¢ Space; Lacaton & Vassal, Frédéric Druot, Christophe Hutin: Cité du Grand Parc; Baubüro in situ: Halle 118.
Opening: 06/07/2018, 7PM
Pierre-Philippe Hofmann is a visual artist from Brussels with Swiss roots. He has crossed Switzerland along ten axes – from the outermost borders to the geographical centre: Älggi Alp in the canton Obwalden.
The exhibition has been extended until 24/06/2018.
Produced in cooperation with the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements, Dhaka
The exhibition ‘Bengal Stream’ brings together over 60 projects by established and emerging architects in Bangladesh. One of the most internationally prominent architectural photographers, Iwan Baan, was brought in to document the projects.
On the occasion of the opening a publication of the same title will be released in the Christoph Merian Verlag.
Opening: 30/06/2017, 7 PM
Swiss architects trying their luck abroad is not a new phenomenon, but Swiss architecture’s definitive international breakthrough was facili- tated by Ticino’s Tendenza and German-speaking Switzerland’s minimalism. In this exhibition, S AM presents selected examples of built and planned projects from the past 10 years.
Forum Basel. Urban spaces for communal living
Opening: 19.05.2017, 7PM
From 20 May to 18 June, S AM abolishes its entrance fee and provides a non-commercial space to the people of Basel to work, play, read, eat, rest and more.
In co-operation with 162 architectural practices from all regions of the country the S AM has created a visual atlas of current Swiss architecture. Switzerland is transported into the museum via large-format projections. The exhibition shows the commonalities and differences in the themes, content and formal strategies that Swiss architects focus on today.
In autumn 2016, S AM closes its doors for conversion work. However, instead of just being closed during this period, it is coming out onto the street. The windows facing Steinenberg shall become projection screens, on which the architects and curators Mateja Vehovar and Stefan Jauslin are to present their interpretation of Swiss architecture in a video installation.
Die in grosser Zahl im ausgehenen 19. Jahrhundert in den neuen Stadtrandquartieren erbauten Schulhäuser nehmen im Plan der Stadt Basel durchwegs eine prominente Stellung ein. Auch nach dem 2. Weltkrieg suchten die Stadtplaner die Schulbauten als Quartierzentren in den neuen Wohngebieten zu verankern. Wohnraumentwicklung und Schulhausplanung sind städtebaulich nicht voneinander zu trennen – auch dies eine der wichtigen Erkenntnisse aus der hier vorgestellten Schulhausstudie.
Based on original documents, this 2016 summer exhibition at S AM provides the first general overview of the oeuvre of Swiss architect André M. Studer, who died in 2007.
The S AM presents ‘This Was Tomorrow’ an exhibition by the Drawing Matter collection about architectural imagination, and the power, processes and poetics of creation and invention.
Opening: 12.03.2016, 7 pm
"Constructing Film: Swiss Architecture in the Moving Image" sheds light on the potential of the moving image as an analytical tool and representation medium for architecture. After exhibitions on architectural photography and criticism, S AM is approaching another means of conveying building culture: film.
film trailer: https://vimeo.com/141398611
On the occasion of the new music festival ZeitRäume, S AM presents an exhibition dedicated to the sound of spaces.
Bernard Tschumi, born in Lausanne in 1944, has influenced contemporary architectural discourse significantly over the past decades, as an architect and as an architectural theorist. For the first time in Switzerland, S AM provides a comprehensive insight into his work.
In continuation of the exhibition series "Spatial Positions", which was initiated in 2013 and focuses on works by contemporary architects and artists at the boundary of the architectural discipline, this exhibition addresses the oeuvre of the Greek architect and philosopher Aristide Antonas (b. 1963, Athens).
The intention of the exhibition "Architecture and text" is to use selected examples to clarify how architecture can be spoken and written about.
With this exhibition, S AM provides an overview, the first of its kind, over Fritz Haller's most important structures and projects – from the late 1940s to the late 1990s.
In the year 2014, the Swiss Architecture Museum S AM celebrates its 30th anniversary. The anniversary year gets underway with the exhibition «Orientations. Young Swiss Architects», which is curated by Hubertus Adam, director of S AM, and which presents six positions within contemporary Swiss architecture: architects who are more-or-less in their thirties.
Content available on 28th of February.
Content available on 28th of February.
Content available on 28th of February.
Content available on 28th of February.
Content available on 28th of February.
TALK & OPENING: 03/05/2013, 7 PM
ARU Architecture Research Unit, Florian Beigel & Philip Christou
Spatial Positions 1. Translations
04/05/2013 – 26/05/2013
This exhibition presents three urban and three building design projects made by Florian Beigel, Philip Christou and the Architecture Research Unit, London. This is an exhibition of design drawings and sketches – design as research.
«BUILDING IMAGES» is conceived as a panorama of the last 25 years of Swiss architecture. Buildings which have contributed to the worldwide success of
Swiss construction are presented – not by means of plans and models, but solely via the medium of photography.
A photographic exhibition on Brodsky’s most important buildings will be held at the S AM Swiss Architecture museum in course of the international festival Culturescapes Moscow 2012. The photographs were taken by Yuri Palmin, a renowned Russian architecture photographer, who has been documenting Brodsky’s work for quite some time.
The exhibition not only offers insights into the respective local complexities and contradictions of life in a Bata City as impacted by the dynamic changes of the 20th century, but also investigates the uncertain future of these places under the influence of post-industrial transformation.
The exhibition begins with a photograph of the ruins after the fire in 1922 and ends with the design sketches of the project that had been initially conceived beginning in 1911–and then ultimately failed—in Munich and afterwards in 1913 was transferred to Dornach.
The exhibition in the Swiss Architecture Museum is based on the concept of an image and plan archive featuring various aspects of the architecture and spatial planning of Israel between 1948 and 1973.
A personal inventory by Jürg Conzett, photographed by Martin Linsi / Swiss contribution to the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice.
This exhibition showcases civil engineering structures which stand out by virtue of their special relationship with the landscape. Civil engineering structures comprise bridges, footbridges, tunnels, retaining walls, passageways, i.e. structures which serve as transport routes.
Based on sixteen selected stage sets – a number of which were created for Basel – the exhibition makes Viebrock’s developmental process visible: from the photographs that serve as the initial source of inspiration to the finished stage set.
Preparation for the exhibition has led to new basic research that will serve as the foundation for a new chapter in European architecture history: plans, drawings and further materials from the Richard Neutra estate in Los Angeles not only document the Swiss oeuvre of the architect, but also make his way of working, his relationships to his clients and his understanding of architec- ture manifest.
As part of the exhibition, original documents and multimedia projections will be shown that were presented in 1972 in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) by the curator Emilio Ambasz. With its own means of systematization the exhibition paid homage to the dynamic and politically complex context of Italian design and architecture of the 1960s and early 1970s.
Zur Basler Museumsnacht (22.01.2010) möchte das S AM Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum, die Idee MetroBasel, die in gleichnamigem Comic vom ETH Studio Basel visualisiert wurde einer breiten Öffentlichkeit zugänglich machen. In der Publikation werden die Kernstadt Basels sowie die umliegenden Schweizer, Deutschen und Französischen Gebiete portraitiert und untersucht, sowie städtebauliche Potentiale und Visionen skizziert.
Zehn Architekturbüros, dreissig aktuelle Projekte, klare Stellungnahmen und eine neue Ästhetik. Die Positionen erweisen sich eher als generationenbedingt denn als identitätsbezogen, es sind aber durchaus persönliche und innere Landschaften erkennbar. Alle beobachten die Welt aufmerksam, möchten zu einem besseren Leben beitragen und sind sich ihres Einflusses und ihrer Verantwortung bewusst.
Wir dürfen hoffen.
SKYSCRAPERS have sex and are caught in flagrant dèlit. Between a pink torso and a buffed-up American GI, a nun is spitting fire.
Welcome to the The World of Madelon Vriesendorp, an exhibition that for the first time ever, brings together the London based, Dutch-born artist’s wildly diverse practices from the past forty years.
The exhibition uses examples from projects in Belgrade, Zagreb, Kotor, Prishtina and Tirana to illustrate the way architects, artists, urbanists and activists are dealing with these rapid new transformation processes. The outstanding yet hardly known buildings of socialist modernism in Yugoslavia are compared and contrasted with contemporary architecture.
Exactly 100 years after Adolf Loos wrote Ornament and Crime, a manifesto that effectively relegated ornament in architecture to the peripheries of the discourse, “Re-sampling Ornament” takes a first step towards tracing its re-emergence.
ARCH/SCAPES focuses upon 15 new architecture within the heterogeneous cultural landscape of Switzerland, the urban and peri-urban areas, the village typologies of the alpine landscapes and the burgeoning agglomeration. Switzerland’s landscapes – in particular the rural and alpine typologies – are considered public terrain, and a precious asset.
A quarter of a century after he has been shown at the Architectural Association, in London, Pancho Guedes is now revisited at the S AM, Swiss Architecture Museum, in what can be regarded as the first critical and curatorial approach to the eccentric oeuvre that this architect realised in Africa during the Fifties and Sixties.
First taking a historical sweep through the field of architecture contemporary to the Situationists, the exhibition then assembles essential projects in architecture of the present day that could be seen to put into practice that which the Situationists developed as radical urban critique and theory.
UNAUFGERÄUMT / AS FOUND examines architectural designs and strategies for found situations and existing buildings. A collection of recent projects from very different
cultural contexts reveal how, with minimal means and resources, the most unlikely buildings and urban territories can be transformed and extended for entirely new uses.
