Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein: Design Museum, Fire Station and getting there from Basel

The Vitra Campus is in Weil am Rhein, just across the border north of Basel, and it is not a single museum. The site holds the Vitra Design Museum, the Schaudepot, the VitraHaus, buildings by famous architects and a company site that is only partly accessible.

This page explains what you see with which ticket, what the tours cost, which buildings you only get to know from outside and how to get there from Basel. Prices are from the museum's German price list for 2026, in euros.

What makes up the Vitra Campus?

The famous photos show a spectacular ensemble, but they do not promise that every building is a museum. A large part of the site remains company grounds or outdoor space.

What do the museum, Schaudepot and tours cost?

Reduced prices apply to young people from 13, students, seniors and people with disabilities, and children under 13 visit the museums free. The third column applies to school groups only, and the price page does not say whether free entry also covers tours, the Slide Tower or workshops.

When we researched, the museum's French page showed different amounts from the German 2026 list. We go with the dated German list and note the discrepancy, so check the price at the desk.

Photo: Gunnar Klack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When is the campus open?

The Vitra Design Museum is open daily from 10am to 6pm, and on 24 December from 10am to 2pm. The official information we had does not say whether it opens on 25 and 26 December, New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

These hours apply to the museum, not to every building on the site. The Schaudepot and the tours have their own rhythm, the VitraHaus is a showroom, and installations, private events or the weather can close individual parts.

How does the architecture tour work?

The two-hour architecture tour starts at the VitraHaus, Monday to Thursday at 11am, Friday to Sunday and on public holidays at 11am and 2pm. It is in German, and the sources do not confirm a French or English tour on any particular day.

The tour tells the story of Vitra and the site and stops at, among others, Zaha Hadid's Fire Station, Tadao Ando's Conference Pavilion and Herzog and de Meuron's Schaudepot. It is the only reliable way to enter buildings you can otherwise only see from outside.

The museum promises no fast-track entry. Booking online secures your place on a tour, not priority in every queue.

What do you see on site?

The Design Museum shows temporary exhibitions, not a permanent collection or a factory tour. If you want to see how furniture is made, this is the wrong place; if design history and materials interest you, it is the right one.

The Schaudepot complements the museum: a walk-in store with a dense selection from the collection, more collection display than staging. Combined with the museum it costs €26.

The VitraHaus is one of the most photographed buildings on the campus and first and foremost a showroom: furniture in home settings, with sales and advice, plus a view over the site. Selling it as a free museum of historic furniture would be wrong.

The Fire Station, with its slanting planes and taut lines, is most striking from outside. It is not a freely accessible museum inside, so if you want to stand in it, book the tour.

Tadao Ando's pavilion, all concrete, garden and controlled paths, is a lesson in light and silence. It too usually opens only as part of the tour.

Photo: Marsupium, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Why are there so many famous buildings there?

The campus did not start out as a public architecture park but as the production and development site of the furniture maker Vitra. After a fire in 1981 the company gradually brought in international architects, and the rebuilding turned into a manifesto of contemporary architecture.

Gehry, Hadid, Ando and Herzog and de Meuron share no common aesthetic, and it is precisely their juxtaposition that is the subject of the place. That is why the tour is worth it: it explains the campus as a strategy of rebuilding, corporate identity and collecting, not as a random row of famous names.

How do you get from Basel to the Vitra Campus?

By bus 55 or tram 8, both of which run from Basel across the border to Weil am Rhein. The bus is the usual choice for the campus; with the tram, depending on the stop, a walk or a change is added.

• The ticket: both lines leave Switzerland. A Basel city ticket or the BaselCard does not cover the cross-border section, so buy a ticket to Weil am Rhein.
• Journey time: depends on your start, traffic and stop; we found no reliable single figure.
• On foot from the border: possible, but not very appealing, through junctions and an industrial area.
• By car: there are car parks, which can be short of space at weekends and in the holidays. The sources confirm neither a rate nor free parking.

Which Basel lines go where and which zones the BaselCard covers is explained in getting around Basel. The guest card's limits are in BaselCard and Mobility Ticket.

How do you combine Vitra with other destinations?

With the Fondation Beyeler the combination is most coherent: architecture, modern and contemporary art, short distances in the region. Realistically: the Fondation in the morning, lunch and the journey, the museum or Schaudepot in the afternoon, then the VitraHaus and outdoor areas if time allows.

Both museums, the architecture tour and the Slide Tower in one day turn the visit into a race. What the Fondation costs and how to get to Riehen is in Fondation Beyeler in Riehen.

With the Dreiländereck you get a day around the three borders. The pylon and the riverbank are not a second museum, though, but a short stop, as day trips from Basel explains.

With the Novartis Campus it becomes an architecture day. Both in half a day with indoor visits is not possible; what you can and cannot see in St. Johann is in Novartis Campus Basel.

How accessible is the campus?

Not uniformly. Buildings designed as works of architecture have stairs, uneven floors, ramps or narrow paths, and the museum, Schaudepot, VitraHaus and tours are not equivalent.

The price list mentions a discount for people with disabilities, but there is no overview of lifts, toilets, companions, the Slide Tower or the Fire Station. Ask the museum before your visit.

Photo: Conceptuel, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

What do the promotional pictures not tell you?

• Not a walk-through museum: many famous views show buildings you cannot freely enter.
• The VitraHaus sells: architecturally strong, but partly a showroom.
• Admission does not cover everything: tours cost extra.
• The tour is in German: other languages are not guaranteed.
• The cross-border ticket: the trip from Basel costs more than a city journey.
• Weekends and sunny days: parking, the ticket desk and tours fill up first.

During Art Basel week the fair's visitors add to the crowds, and the cross-border trams and buses are fuller. The 2027 dates are in our guide to Art Basel, and all the city's museums in museums in Basel.

In a two-day plan, Vitra replaces part of the second day rather than being added on top, as things to do in Basel works out. The map of Basel shows where Weil am Rhein lies in relation to the city.

Sources: Vitra Design Museum (the Vitra Design Museum, the Vitra Campus, information, your visit, tours, French page, 2026).