Collection by Miyoko Ohtake
Touring Basel, Switzerland, Part 1
At the end of September, I hopped across the pond to visit Basel, Switzerland, and the nearby Laufen bathrooms factory and showroom. Basel is bisected by the Rhine and sits just south of the intersection of Switzerland, France, and Germany. In the ancient city, first settled during the days of the Roman Empire, you find a mix of soaring neo-Gothic cathedrals, Serra sculptures, knit graffiti, and more.
Upon arrival, I checked into my hotel and the headed toward the Marketplatz public square. I couldn't help but stop and take a picture of the Single Speed Bicycles storefront, which would fit right in in San Francisco. Unlike in the U.S., however, Switzerland still observes Sundays in their traditional form: nearly all the shops were closed.
At a restaurant across from City Hall, I enjoyed my first Swiss meal: fried eggs, bacon, and rosti. I was told by Diccon Bewes, a Brit turned Swiss who has lived in the country for years and recently penned the book Swiss Watching, that the Swiss are huge meat consumers and that rosti, a type of hash browns, is a quite common Swiss dish. Also popular: fondue and raclette, which consists of a slab of cheese that is heated and that is then scraped so that the melted portions pile onto diners' plates, often over potatoes and meat.
The best way to enjoy these old streets is by following one of the five city walks. Each walk takes visitors on a different tour of the city and each is demarcated with wayfinding signs in one of five distinct colors. It was a pure pleasure to walk around without a map, playing a game of finding the next sign that would point me on my way.
If there's one thing that Basel is not short on, it's museums. There are simply too many to visit in one trip. The list includes the Foundation Beyeler (designed by Renzo Piano), Tinguely Museum (designed by Mario Botta), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunsthalle, the Vitra Design Museum in nearby Weil-am-Rhein, Germany, and Kunstmuseum Basel (shown here), among others.
Though the architecture in Basel is largely historic, there are splashes of modern construction throughout the city. The design of this theater is contemporary, but it also exhibits the most common insertion of newness along the streetscapes: modern materials such as metal and glass.
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