History

The HMB traces its origins to the Amerbach Cabinet, a private art collection belonging to the Amerbach family of Basel dating from the 16th century. Their collection, which included the estate of Erasmus of Rotterdam and paintings by Hans Holbein, among other items, passed into the ownership of the University of Basel in 1661 and was opened to the public in 1671 as one of the earliest public collections belonging to a civic community in the German-speaking world.

In 1849, all the city’s collections were brought together under one roof for the first time in the newly built museum building on Augustinergasse. The next decisive step followed in 1856 with the founding of the Medieval Collection – the direct predecessor of today’s museum. In 1872, the Association for the Medieval Collection was founded, which has been known as the ‘Association for the Historical Museum of Basel’ since 1892. In 1892, the Medieval Collection, the Antiquarian Collection and the holdings of the Basel Armoury were united under the new name ‘Historical Museum’.

On 21 April 1894, the Basel Historical Museum opened its doors in the extensively renovated Barfüsserkirche – one of the city’s most significant architectural monuments. This date marks the museum’s actual birth as a public institution. In 1904, part of the building at Steinenberg 4, which had been built as a schoolhouse in 1822, was made available to the HMB for administration, workshops and storage. From 1916 onwards, the institution has borne the name ‘Historisches Museum Basel’, which remains in use to this day.

In the 20th century, the museum grew steadily in both scope and physical space. In 1951, the Haus zum Kirschgarten opened as a museum of Basel’s domestic culture of the 18th and 19th centuries; in 1957, the collection of antique musical instruments found a new home at Leonhardsstrasse 8. In 1999, the Music Museum on Leonhardsstrasse was closed and shortly afterwards reopened in the Lohnhof, in the premises of the former remand prison.

The museum expanded through significant donations and bequests, as well as thousands of objects from the dissolved Basel Museum of Applied Arts (1987–1994). In 1981, the Carriage and Sled Collection opened in Brüglingen, later becoming known as the ‘Carriage Museum’. This building closed in 2017.

Today, the Basel Historical Museum occupies three buildings: the Barfüsserkirche, the Haus zum Kirschgarten and the Music Museum in the Lohnhof. With over 130 years of institutional history and collections dating back to the 16th century, the museum preserves and communicates the cultural memory of the city of Basel – from archaeology and medieval art to the everyday culture of the modern era. In 2025, a major project was carried out in the form of a general inventory to catalogue and make the collection accessible for the future.