Basel is prepared, as every year, to receive the best galleries and collectors the finest in prestigious art fair. The great fortunes will focus the next few days there with checkbooks fuming after a binge of art at the Biennale in Venice, ready to take over the most coveted piece of time. No crisis worth.

Transactions will multimillionaires. This beautiful Swiss city, which is cast fancifully the Rhine, through Sunday will be the nerve center of world art. Nestled in the meeting place of Switzerland, France and Germany (some say that when you move through it you do not know exactly in which country you are), Basel offers endless cultural activities as cultural guests. Not for nothing has the highest per capita number of museums across the country: up to 40 to just 200,000. But Basel is an added attraction: the leading architects are leaving their mark on the city and may make interesting architectural tours, including guided-through its streets.

Roger Federer is undoubtedly the most famous citizen of Basle in the world, as famous as their Läckerli, delicious pastas, spices and honey, but not the only one who walks the name of this city in the world. Architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron as well. We start with this pair of luxury travel for the best architecture that can be seen today in Basel. One of its most interesting buildings and is valued Schaulager (2000-2003). Built by order of the Laurenz Foundation, was inaugurated in 2003 in Münchenstein, on the outskirts of Basel. It comes in a flash with the tram 11. It is a mix of public museum (exhibits the collection of the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation), art warehouse open to visitors and artistic research institute. Opens its doors from April to September. Currently hosting the exhibition “From Holbein to Tillmans’ in addition to the Kunstmuseum masterpieces that have been let down by reason of the shows of Van Gogh. The building of 7,500 square meters, is a curious combination of granite, wood and concrete. Its facade minimalist, white stone (pierced by a few cracks), and its very original gateway hidden inside marvelous architecture. Appointment required.

Nearby, taking the same car 11, we can admire the Signal Tower (1998-99). Herzog & De Meuron created this beautiful copper irregular trapezoid, with slats on the surface, in a railway network. The building, which is twisted, changes color depending on the light. Tricolor, the French flag (blue, red and white) the Swiss architects stained glass door Elsässtor or Alsace (2002-2005), an office building next to the station Basel SBB. It comes with trams 1, 2, 8 or 16. With him, we admire a rigorous white building by Richard Meier (now converted into a garage and office mall) and a former brewery, which Diener & Diener became UBS training center.

The route Herzog & De Meuron in Basel is endless: the colorful St. Jakob Stadium, which opened in 2002 (tram 14 or bus 36), Suva-Haus (a tribute to the myth of Icarus), Pharmacy (green , evoking the old pharmaceutical bottles) … Mario Botta has also left its mark in Basel. His best-known building in the city is BIZ (1990-95). This cylinder 28 meters in height, six-story, reminiscent of the Colosseum in Rome, is built in natural stone of two colors. As a curiosity, cost 150 million francs and there he brought in 150 employees. Although it was commissioned by UBS, it was finally Regolamenti Internazionali dei Bank (Tram 3, 8, 10, 11, 14 or 15/Bus 41, 70 or 80). Botta also signs the Museum Tinguely (1994-96), in red sandstone (Bus 31 or 36). It contains an area of 6,000 square meters, with an impressive garden, which installs the amazing artifacts that devised the Swiss artist. In the downtown, next to the theater, is the famous Source Tinguely, one of the most photographed attractions in the city.

Renzo Piano Basel bequeathed to one of its most beautiful buildings, the Foundation Beyeler (1993-97). One is in the suburb of Riehen, an idyllic place in spring, full of plants and flowers. The Beyeler, now directs with his usual good sense Samuel Keller, former director of Art Basel is home to the splendid collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler: 200 works by Picasso, Klee, Leger, Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Bacon, Lichtenstein … The elegant building, straight and sober, merges with the environment. Since some steps of the large window front lawn of the museum are often admired the “Water Lilies” by Monet. In the beautiful gardens, a large sculpture of Calder. Reached by tram 6. Just opened a monograph by Giacometti. This is another city appointments required. Hard to leave this place.

Very close to Basel, but on German soil, in the Charles Eames Strasse in Weil am Rhein (it is bus 55) is the Vitra Design Museum. It is much better than the temple of twentieth century design. It is an architectural campus (there are guided tours), which contains gems such as Gehry’s first building in Europe (1989), sinuous curves of white-houses the museum, factory, store …-, the first building designed by Zaha Hadid , 1993 (a fire station in the Iraqi Pritzker Prize points and some lines of what would become his acclaimed architecture, as the absence of straight lines) or an original station of Jean Prouvé. There were six, but only two of. The Portuguese Alvaro Siza is present on the Vitra Campus in a building with little windows for production and a bridge-tunnel in the roof of which is movable and connecting it to another building, metal facade by UK Nicholas Grimshaw.

The showroom is transferred to the new building under construction, which have been designed by Herzog & De Meuron. Another treasure is the Vitra Campus building by Tadao Ando. The Japanese fell in love with this place and, in contrast to the movement of the Gehry building, created one, whose facade is made of concrete rectangles, integrated in nature. In memory of the three trees that had to be cut can be seen in the front three leaves that fell. This building is dedicated to meetings.

Is great and excellent architecture in Basel? Very little Spanish, though. Just find a footbridge to the station Bahnhof SBB (2001-2003), who made the Seville Cruz y Ortiz. And just this journey with one of the architectural treasures of Basel, the Novartis Campus, and the best kept secret of the powerful pharmaceutical company (it is impossible to visit for that of espionage). Gehry’s building houses, Diener & Diener, Sejima and Nishizawa …