 Appointed director of the Art Museum in Basle, he succeeded in building up a small collection by 1902 which became the starting point of the «Archiv für schweizerische Kunstgeschichte» (Archives of the history of art in Switzerland).At the same time, Johann Rudolf Rahn began to draw up an inventory of Switzerland's art and history monuments.In 1915, the Department of the Interior created a Federal Commission of Historic Monuments and the Society's activity in the field of the preservation of monuments thus had to come to an end.