Stadtcasino Basel
Main concert hall
General information
Town or cityBasel
CountrySwitzerland
Coordinates47°33′16″N 7°35′22″E / 47.55444°N 7.58944°E / 47.55444; 7.58944
Website
www.stadtcasino-basel.ch/en/

Stadtcasino Basel is a concert hall in Basel, Switzerland.

It belongs to the Stadtcasino-Gesellschaft, a non-profit cultural association in Basel.[1] The largest concert hall, the Musiksaal from 1876 with 1500 seats, is internationally renowned for its excellent acoustics and is the home base of the Sinfonieorchester Basel.[2]

History

Interior as it appeared in 1897, during the First Zionist Congress.

The founding members first met, in hired premises on Reinacherhof, in 1808; eventually the society required its own building, and from 1820 the architect Melchior Berri worked on plans. The Stadtcasino-Gesellschaft was officially established in 1824, and the original building at Steinenberg was completed in 1826.[1]

Notable events held in the original building include the First Zionist Congress in 1897.[3] Up until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Congress was held a total of ten times in the Steinenberg premises, more than in any other city or venue in the world.[4][5]

In the late 1930s, because of financial difficulty, the original building was sold, and a new building was erected.[1]

From 2000 there was a project to build a new Stadtcasino. Although an international competition was held for architects, and a winning project by Zaha Hadid was announced, the voters of the canton of Basel-Stadt refused permission in 2007 to proceed with the new building. It was proposed to make structural alterations and extensions to the existing building. The modifications, based on a study by architects Herzog & de Meuron, were carried out from 2016, and in 2020 the Stadtcasino Basel was officially reopened.[1]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stadtcasino Basel.
  1. 1 2 3 4 "The Casino-Gesellschaft Basel" Stadtcasino Basel. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  2. ↑ The orchestra Sinfonieorchester Basel. Retrieved 14 May 2023.
  3. ↑ The Dream of Zion: The Story of the First Zionist Congress, Lawrence J. Epstein
  4. ↑ Battegay, Lubrich, Caspar, Naomi (2018). Jewish Switzerland: 50 Objects Tell Their Stories (in German and English). Basel: Christoph Merian. pp. 130–133. ISBN 9783856168476.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ "Der Erste Zionistenkongress im Stadtcasino Basel". Stadt.Geschichte.Basel.
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