Home to 40 museums, the city of culture for connoisseurs has the highest concentration of museums in the country. Basel also has a beautiful old town, modern architecture, and the Rhine – an inviting spot to rest a while.

Birsfeldin lies on the southeastern outskirts of the city of Basel. Birsfelden harbour is one of Switzerland’s ports on the Rhine, and all sorts of industry has grown up around the port: Basel chemical companies, shipping, car part and construction companies. And at Sternenfeldstrasse 16 near the harbour, the sounds of welding, hammering and drilling can be heard. But here things are a little different than in the rest of the neighbourhood. Because this is the workshop used by Cicolupo, and it is where art is created.

Cicolupo was founded in 2010 by four friends of different backgrounds who decided to join forces. The quartet was composed of Pascal Martinoli, Filip Wolfensberger, Joel Lobsiger Vargas and Manou Clément. Today, Martinoli and Wolfensberger form the main core of Cicolupo. The duo has specialised in scrap metal, which it uses to create its distinctive sculptures.

The biography of Jean Tinguely, of which many of Cicolupo’s works are reminiscent, is closely linked to the city of Basel. Tinguely was born in 1925 in the city of Fribourg in Western Switzerland, and he grew up in Basel before moving to Paris at the start of the 1950s. The painter and sculptor is one of Switzerland’s most important artists and main proponents of kinetic art. Tinguely was mainly famous for his kinetic machine-like sculptures. His material of choice for his works was usually scrap metal. 

Tinguely kept up ties with the city of his childhood, even while he was at the peak of his creativity. In 1977, he created the Tinguely Fountain in Basel. In the spot where the stage of the old city theatre used to be, Tinguely erected playful machines in a pool of water, thereby bestowing a new iconic landmark on the city. Even if Martinoli and Wolfensberger have walked past the Tinguely Fountain countless times, they still enjoy spending time there. Tinguely’s artworks never fail to fascinate them anew.

Five years after his death, a museum was opened in Basel in his honour: with the world’s largest collection of his works, Museum Tinguely has been the first port of call for discovering the life and work of Jean Tinguely since 1996. A masterpiece in its own right, the building that houses the museum was designed by Mario Botta. The park in front of the museum also has artworks to admire from contemporaries of Tinguely who played a key role in his life.

One such example is the sculpture “Gwendolyn” (1966) by artist Niki de Saint Phalle, who was married to Jean Tinguely up until his death. Or the piece “Dickfigur Beteigeuze” (1996) by Bernhard Luginbühl: a sculptor and iron artist with whom Tinguely formed a lifelong friendship. Cicolupo also cites Luginbühl as one of their main inspirations. 

Jean Tinguely is certainly not the only artist who left his mark on the public spaces of Basel. Many of these impressive works are made of materials that still fascinate Cicolupo today: steel, bronze and iron.

Another work that is just a short walk from the Tinguely Fountain, right in front of the entrance to Theater Basel: “Intersection” by Richard Serra. The four massive steel plates are hard to overlook. Originally part of a temporary exhibit back in 1992, the sculpture was later permanently installed on Theaterplatz.

Not far from Theaterplatz is the Kunstmuseum Basel. Here too, museum-goers are welcomed by two imposing metallic works of art in its courtyard. One is “The Burghers of Calais”, an extraordinary bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. The Basel sculpture is the seventh original casting out of a total of twelve worldwide. Next to the Burghers stands a contemporary piece by Alexander Calder: Big Spider is an iron sculpture dating back to 1959, and gets its name from the fact that it is reminiscent of a gigantic spider.

Not far from Basel SBB railway station, an impressive open-air artwork has been in place since 2020 ‒ a fantastical creature that guards the gates of Baloise Park. The bronze sculpture entitled “Third Animal” by German artist Thomas Schütte is somewhat reminiscent of a dog, a seal or a dragon, which every once in a while snorts little clouds of steam into the air.

Another work by Thomas Schütte called “Hase” can be found in the Basel suburb of Riehen, in the park of the renowned Fondation Beyeler. Together with the Kunstmuseum Basel and Museum Tinguely, the Fondation Beyeler is one of the most important art museums in Switzerland.

Just a stone’s throw away, in the centre of Riehen, Schütte’s Hase has another animal companion – a 2.2-tonne metal colossus from the Cicolupo workshop. It took Cicolupo months of work to create their new piece of work known as “Bull”. Another sculpture to grace the public space in the city of Basel has been completed.