Historisches Museum Basel – Haus zum Kirschgarten

The Basel Historical Museum with its three sites is widely regarded as the most important museum of cultural history on the Upper Rhine. It collects, conserves, records and researches objects and artefacts of relevance to our cultural heritage for future generations, tells visitors the story of Basel, and is a place for discourse and engagement with both present and future.

The Haus zum Kirschgarten was built for the silk ribbon manufacturer and army colonel Johann Rudolf Burckhardt between 1775 and 1780. The mansion designed by the architect Johann Ulrich Büchel attests to his client’s wealth and status and is a tour de force of early Neoclassical style, influenced in part by Masonic concepts. It has been a museum of domestic culture since 1951. Most of the interior is devoted to the 18th- and 19th-century period rooms formerly inhabited by Basel’s bourgeoisie. But the museum also houses several special collections and hosts mini-exhibitions, such as that on Sheikh Ibrahim.