| Stadtcasino Basel | |
| Location City: | Basel |
| Location Country: | Switzerland |
| Coordinates: | 47.5544°N 7.5894°W |
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]
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]