The Kunstmuseum Basel traces its collection to 1661, when the city and university of Basel bought the Amerbach Cabinet, described as the first municipally owned public museum. Paul Bonatz and Rudolf Christ designed the main building, which was built from 1931 to 1936, and the museum moved there in 1936. It holds art from the 15th century to 1950.
Christ & Gantenbein won a 2008 competition against five Pritzker Prize laureates and others. Their extension was completed in April 2016. It is an angled building faced in concrete bricks, joined to the main building by an underpass. It adds 29,600 square feet (2,750 m²) of galleries, for a total of nearly 107,600 square feet (10,000 m²).
Dan Flavin's outdoor installation arrived in 1975, and in 2006 Eberhard Kornfeld donated over 100 Rembrandt etchings. The museum had 265,000 visitors in 2019.
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