At the south of the old estate a gate in the wall opens to a sloping hill. Because Beyeler wanted level space, the entrance is almost seven feet below the grade level of the site's highest point. It is reached by gentle terraces that end in a pool beside the glazed south facade. Views into this southernmost gallery reveal a huge Monet that harmonizes with the landscape it overlooks. The street wall is the spine, in front of which four load-bearing walls, each nearly 400 feet long, run parallel, forming the lobby and three rows of gallery space.
Lateral divisions are flexible.
A basement space with lower ceilings, which receives some natural light, will be used together with one main-floor gallery for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art. Beyeler rejected the stretched fabric ceilings of the Twombly and Brancusi museums in favor of white steel screens that diffuse light evenly and allow occasional views to the sky. Light French oak floors, in which air vents run laterally, are uniform throughout. Tiny reveals at the bottom of partitions and window frames embedded within the walls dissolve the distinction between exterior and interior and further enhance this architecture of space and light. The museum's walls are intended to rise from the earth like old ruins, and indeed its trabeated architecture recalls the temples of antiquity.