The Pinakothek der Moderne Four museums under one roof The Pinakothek der Moderne is one of the world’s largest museums of fine art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Its dimensions are comparable to those of the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Tate Modern in London. Opened in September 2002 and designed by Stephan Braunfels, the building features open and generous architecture that creates linkages and provides visitors with constantly changing and surprising insights. Working in conjunction with each other under one roof in the Pinakothek der Moderne are four independent institutions: the ModernModern Art Collection (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, the Neue Sammlung ––– The International Design Museum Munic h, the Architecture MusMuseumeum of the Technical University MunichMunich (Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München) and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (State Graphics Collection). The supra-disciplinary focus of the Pinakothek der Moderne preserves the identity of the individual collections while at the same presenting their inter- related parts in a wider cultural context. In the basement are the showrooms of the Architecture Museum of the TU Munich and the Graphische Sammlung. Neither have permanent exhibitions. Instead, they change displays of works held by them every three months or so. The rooms »Temporär 1 + 2« on the ground floor are used by all four institutions for changing exhibitions. The entire first floor is given over to the Modern Art Collection. Principal works of classic modern art by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and Pablo Picasso are the main focus on the Upper Floor West. Complexes of works by Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Gerhard Richter trace positions in art after 1960 on the Upper Floor East. Also on display here is contemporary art and photography. The main staircase leads directly to Room 21 where changing presentations of present-day art are shown. The narrower staircase opposite takes visitors to the beginning of the tour through the various rooms dedicated to classic Modern Art with Expressionists, Cubists and Futurists. In the basement are the showrooms of the Neue Sammlung with design exhibits. The large showcases at the entrance present examples from the areas that make up the collection: products from industrial culture and the applied arts. The focus rooms are devoted to automobile design and computer culture. March 2004 saw the opening of the Danner Rotunda in the second basement with its exhibition space dedicated to contemporary jewellery. The Pinakothek der Moderne sees itself as a forum for active dialogue. As well as being a haven for contemplation and concentration, it also acts as a platform for experimentation, where one can actively engage in contemporary discussions on art and try out new strategies. A multi-facetted, interdisciplinary programme of events and art appreciation enriches the interaction of the arts. Architecture Museum of the TU Munich The Architecture Museum was founded in 1868 at the same time as the Technical University as a means of collecting and presenting architectural works for educational purposes. After it lost its significance for the study of architecture in the years between the two World Wars it was changed into a repository for archives and a research institution. Following damage in the Second World War the architectural treasures remained hidden from public view for a number of years. In 1975 the collection was converted into an archive for museum purposes in order to once again make the items accessible to the public. As it did not have any exhibition rooms of its own, the collection worked together with other museums, in particular the Municipal Museum of Munich, (Münchner Stadtmuseum). Thanks to a continual stream of new acquisitions, the Architecture Museum holds by far the largest specialist collection on architecture in Germany today. Its stock comprises some 500,000 drafts by 700 architects, 100,000 photographs, 500 models as well as a large number of sample works, documents and more recently computer animations and prints. The oldest drawings date back to the 16 th century, the oldest model to the 17th century. Among the highlights are works by Balthasar Neumann, Friedrich von Gärtner, Leo von Klenze, Theodor Fischer, Erich Mendelsohn, Erik Gunnar Asplund, Le Corbusier, Günter Behnisch and Peter Zumthor. The focus of the collection is on German architecture of the 19th and 20th century, though it also includes important new projects and competition entries, drawings and models by leading international architects and important documents on construction technology. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich Along with Berlin und Dresden the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich holds the most important collection of drawings and graphic prints in Germany and is one of the leading cabinets worldwide. The collection is in possession of some 400,000 works on paper from all epochs ranging from the 15th century to the present. The focus is on Old German and Netherlandish drawings and printed graphics, Italian drawings from the Renaissance period, German drawings from the 19th century, works of classic Modern Art and international works on paper right through to the present day. The origins of the collection go back to cabinet of copper engravings and drawings founded in 1758 by Palatinate Elector Karl Theodor von der Pfalz in his Mannheim palace. It was transferred to Munich before 1800. During the period of secularisation works on paper that had belonged to the dissolved monasteries and convents were integrated into the collection. Since1874, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung has been an independent museum institution. Up till 1944, it was housed in the former building of the Neue Pinakothek and shared the same fate of being destroyed. At the end of the war it was provisionally accommodated in the former NS administration headquarters at the Königsplatz, where to this day the collection’s stock and administrative offices are located. In the Pinakothek der Moderne the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung has finally found the exhibition space that befits the collection’s standing and conservation requirements. In what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive exhibition in its history, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München celebrated its two hundredth and fiftieth anniversary in 2008.. In doing so, it is providing unique and focused insights into its rich collection of high quality works. Modern Art Collection (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) The Modern Art Collection (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) is one of the leading international institutions for painting, sculpture, photography and the new media. The spectrum ranges from the most important avant-garde movements of the early 20th century to current contemporary art. In dialogues offering comparisons and in rooms dedicated to individual artists, the displayed works raise formal and content issues concerning Modern Art. These artworks reflect how conditions have changed in an age shaped by technological optimism and the cult of progression on the one hand and by a heightened awareness of crises on the other. In the incomparably rich collection of Expressionists, the Cubist and Futuristic re-definition of autonomous art challenges the question of man’s changed circumstances in the modern age. The artists of the »Brücke«, the »Blaue Reiter« and Max Beckmann, who is uniquely represented here, address this issue impressively. Pablo Picasso’s pictorial fantasies and formal richness of invention are illuminated in large groups of works along with the Surrealist enigmas of the worlds portrayed by Max Ernst, René Magritte and Salvador Dalí. Important themes after 1950, such as the formal and contextual extension of the term art, the art of the formless and the ennobling of the trivial, the equal value attributed to common and high culture and fundamentally changed mechanisms of perception are debated in the blocks of works by Lucio Fontana, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Georg Baselitz. It has never been the intention of the museum to present a seamless chronology of art in the 20th and 21st century. Instead, it places fundamental questions concerning modern and contemporary art at the centre of discourse, thereby stimulating intensified dialogue. The parallel developments in classic Modern Art are thus much more clearly understood as a result of concentrating ones view on selected works than would be possible through an all-encompassing overview. Similarly, the changed mechanisms of perception and the new understanding of reality at the end of the 20th century are explained more precisely in their individual positions, which frequently find themselves challenging one another in keeping with new standpoints, than could be achieved in a panorama. The museum’s exhibition concept of targeting relatively few, yet exemplary, issues of art takes account of the particular profile of the collections, which emphatically prioritise concentration and focus. In doing so, this concept follows the quality parameters set by the Alte Pinakothek. However, it has gone beyond the latter’s approach, which was oriented towards classical categories and presentational forms, to incorporate new artistic modes of expression. These extend to experimental strategies that frequently reject being subsumed into museum collections. The Neue Sammlung ––– The International Design MuseumMuseum,,,, Munich With over 80.000