With the end of IBA Basel Expo at the beginning of June 2021, the International Building Exhibition Basel 2020 officially came to an end and with it the first effective International Building Exhibition in the border triangle between Germany, France and Switzerland. Everything you need to know about IBA Basel can be found here.

With the end of the IBA Basel Expo at the beginning of June 2021, the International Building Exhibition Basel 2020 officially came to an end and with it what was effectively the first International Building Exhibition in the border triangle between Germany, France and Switzerland. A closing film now summarizes the goals and developments of IBA Basel 2020.

The IBA Basel was the first International Building Exhibition to address the topic of spatial planning in border regions. International Building Exhibitions are a special format for urban and regional development. They are a hallmark of national building and planning culture. For more than a century, these experimental fields have brought current issues of planning and building to the forefront of national and international debate.

The origins of the IBA Basel date back to 2008, when everything began with the so-called first “draft memorandum”. This was drawn up by the Department of Construction and Transport of the Canton of Basel-Stadt together with the Trinational Eurodistict Basel TEB. In 2009, the TEB worked out the challenges and opportunities of trinational fragmentation and published these in the 2020 development strategy “A Future for Three”. In the strategy, it identified the main spatial planning objectives of “settlement development”, “transport development” and “landscape planning” as well as the “interactions with the areas of economic and population development” and “governance” and “financing of major metropolitan projects”. In 2010, the political players in the region jointly proclaimed the Basel International Building Exhibition.

2020: 20 projects with the IBA Basel label

In the ten years that followed, the IBA Basel put the shared responsibility for the agglomeration into concrete terms in projects, buildings, infrastructure and landscapes and provided impetus for a cross-border culture of cooperation, in line with the official IBA motto “Au-delà des frontières, ensemble – Growing together across borders”. Under the direction of Monica Linder-Guarnaccia, the IBA in the border triangle saw itself as an instrument of change. From 130 project proposals, the IBA team and a large number of stakeholders from the administration and interest groups launched 43 cross-border projects. A total of 20 of these were officially labeled as IBA projects in 2020.

To the memorandum of the IBA Basel

The memorandum of the IBA Expert Council describes the basis for implementing an IBA in ten recommendations. Precisely because the IBAs have no fixed regulations, their significance for building culture and urban development in a regional, national and international context must be constantly reviewed.

About the IBA Expert Council

The IBA Expert Council supports and advises the current IBAs and ensures that the developments, structures and content of the IBAs are in line with the quality criteria set out in the Memorandum. It also accompanies the preparatory phases of the IBA initiatives. The IBA Expert Council was appointed by the Federal Ministry of Building. Read more about the Expert Council here.

The initial situation of the International Building Exhibition Basel was that of a fragmented agglomeration. The central IBA task was to harmonize the different submission rights, legal bases, internal administrative processes, decision-making powers and financing models of the three participating countries and, last but not least, to build up intercultural competence. This was no easy task and without an understanding of the different mentalities and hierarchies, the implementation of real cross-border projects on an equal footing with the other party would not have been possible. In the course of the IBA in the border triangle, a paradigm shift took place in cross-border cooperation between German, French and Swiss stakeholders. The border region grew together on a political, economic and cultural level during the IBA years.

A budget of twelve million euros instead of one billion

Getting there was an adventure and many a stone had to be cleared away. The IBA in the three countries had to work with the different cultural influences of the three countries, the economic discrepancy between the flourishing economic metropolis of Basel and the agglomeration and the bilingualism – German and French. Above all, however, financing was a constant problem. Despite the support of 27 financing municipalities, the available budget remained far underfunded. The IBA Basel worked with twelve million, while the IBA Hamburg received one billion euros.
The planned three-year financing of the IBA Basel office and its project development fund placed additional demands on the ten-year project throughout its entire duration. This also became part of a recurring search for consensus, added value and return on investment.

The IBA in the border triangle is not an architectural showcase in the traditional sense and has therefore been criticized several times in the past. According to critics, the lighthouse projects traditionally built for an IBA are missing. And yes, the International Building Exhibition Basel is not characterized by building construction projects. Rather, it defines a new era for the format of the International Building Exhibition itself. The background: unlike its predecessors – such as the IBA Stadtumbau in Saxony-Anhalt, the IBA See in Lusatia or the IBA Emscher Park – the Basel International Building Exhibition is not taking place in a traditionally structurally weak area.

The IBA of processes

The Basel region has been flourishing for decades with financially strong companies such as Novartis and Roche. The IBA in the border triangle did not arise out of an emergency situation. The challenge of the International Building Exhibition Basel was to establish a tri-national planning culture between more than 64 regional authorities and numerous private stakeholders over ten IBA years and to launch outstanding cross-border projects in a rolling process. The International Building Exhibition Basel is therefore an IBA of processes. This difference has not made it easy for it. In contrast to building construction projects, process innovation is difficult to present.

Out of 130, 20 projects prevailed

An International Building Exhibition puts social, future living environments up for discussion. It must have a message and this must be significant for other regions, it must be transferable. The International Building Exhibition Basel has shown internationally how measures to strengthen and develop a border region can be implemented together. The Basel International Building Exhibition shows how beneficial it is to take the needs of the other party into account. It has shown how participation and an interdisciplinary approach can increase project quality, even if they take more time and are more complex. The 20 labeled IBA projects together with the IBA project groups and the nominated projects speak for themselves.

IBA Basel closing film

The finissage on June 4, 2021 marked the official end of the IBA Basel Expo and with it the International Building Exhibition Basel. Together with the IBA Presidium, IBA Basel Managing Director Monica Linder-Guarnaccia invited guests to reflect on the findings of ten years of the IBA process and look ahead to the future development of the region.

Spatial planning development across national borders was the focus of the International Building Exhibition Basel. No IBA before the IBA Basel had ever dealt with this topic in this way. The special focus, objectives and developments of the IBA Basel are now summarized in a closing film for the IBA Basel 2020.

Garten + Landschaft provided information online about the projects, their creators and the IBA’s goals. The findings of the first cross-border International Building Exhibition in the border triangle of Germany, France and Switzerland have resulted in the publication “IBA Basel 2020. Crossing borders together” in German and French, which is well worth reading. Find out more here.

Our colleagues at Baumeister also celebrated with a special Baumeister issue on IBA Basel 2020 in May.

The spread of the coronavirus is having a dramatic impact on cultural life in Europe. However, Olaf Zimmermann, Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, recommends that, despite all due caution, culture should not be completely avoided these days Many people are currently hardly visiting museums, concerts and cinemas out of concern for their health. The Leipzig Book Fair has been canceled, the […]

The spread of the coronavirus is having a dramatic impact on cultural life in Europe. However, Olaf Zimmermann, Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, recommends that, despite all due caution, culture should not be completely avoided these days

Many people are hardly visiting museums, concerts and cinemas at the moment out of concern for their health. The Leipzig Book Fair has been canceled and the Frankfurt Music Fair postponed. However, smaller organizers in particular, such as those of readings, concerts or theater performances that have been cancelled, must be supported financially. The German Book Prize will now be awarded without an audience. However, the Managing Director of the German Cultural Council, Olaf Zimmermann, recommends that, despite all due caution, culture should not be completely avoided these days. Instead, he encourages those interested in culture to still attend cultural events so that the losses for cultural professionals are not as drastic as feared.

Massive restrictions have been in place in Austria since today. The opening of the new “Albertina modern” in the new Künstlerhaus, which was scheduled for Thursday, has been canceled for the public; the opening will now take place in a small circle of lenders and artists, as Director Klaus Albrecht Schröder announced in a personal letter: “As you know, our openings are always very successful and popular. For this reason, the opening of ‘Albertina modern’ on Thursday is also expected to be very popular. Unfortunately, under the current circumstances, we cannot guarantee the necessary social distancing between visitors; and of course we do not want to expose you to the risk of possible infection.” With over 60,000 works by 5,000 artists, this second location of the Albertina will be one of the largest museums of contemporary art.

Culture in Italy has also come to a standstill due to the spread of coronavirus: In Rome, the exhibition of the Renaissance painter Raphael, among others, remains closed. Just three days after opening, the major exhibition to mark the 500th anniversary of the painter’s death has already been closed again. As the Scuderie Quirinale announced on its website, the show with 120 works by the artist will remain closed to visitors until further notice. Strict quarantine measures have been in place since the weekend in Italy, where the most Covid-19 cases have been registered in Europe. The Italian government’s crisis intervention is also affecting the country’s major cultural institutions: All of the country’s museums are to remain closed for the time being. The Vatican Museums in Rome, for example, will remain closed until April 3. As the Vatican announced on Sunday, this also applies to the excavations under St. Peter’s Basilica, the Museum of the Papal Villas in Castel Gandolfo and all museums in other papal basilicas such as the Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore. In Florence, the Uffizi Gallery, which is one of the most visited museums in the world, is closed. The ruins of Pompeii near Naples are also no longer open to visitors for the time being. Museums in Switzerland, for example, are constantly reviewing the reports and government recommendations on the coronavirus and are following the recommendations and instructions of the health authorities. There have not yet been any closures, but for the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Fondation Beyeler, the health of guests and staff is a top priority. While the Kunstmuseum Basel has not yet seen any particular drop in visitor numbers, this is already a reality at the Fondation Beyeler.