FONDATION BEYELER

In Riehen, near Basel, this magnificent building was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, who also created the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Nestled in an English-style park, amid wheat fields and lily ponds, this luminous structure blends into the landscape, surrounded by a winter garden and the Villa Berower, home to the museum's restaurant. Here, nature, art and architecture coexist in perfect harmony.

Founded by Basel gallery owners Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, collectors of ^20th-century masters, the foundation, inaugurated in 1997, houses a vast collection of 400 works of post-impressionist, modern and contemporary art, plus 30 ethnographic objects from Africa, Oceania and Alaska, which are presented several times a year in changing exhibitions. Thematic exhibitions devoted to cities and artistic movements that played a decisive role in the development of modern art are also regularly organized. The founding couple had a clear vision for their foundation: an open, lively museum capable of inspiring a broad public with a love of art, and which would not only promote cultural education, but also encourage exchange. Today, the Foundation's worldwide reputation makes it one of Switzerland's most popular museums. It is also one of the most beautiful, thanks to the generous proportions of its halls, which display works of art in remarkable natural light.