Opening hours
Tue. & Thurs. – Sun. 10 a. m. – 6 p. m.
Wed. 10 a. m. – 8 p. m.
Closed on Monday

Admission until 5.30 p. m. respectively 7.30 p. m.

Founded in 1981, the latest addition to Frankfurt’s museum world was baptized the »slice of cake« by locals, due to its triangular shape. In 1983 an open design competition was held to decide what the museum should look like. On May 17, 1983 Hans Hollein, a Viennese architect, was awarded the first prize and was commissioned to handle the project.

With his design for the Museum für Moderne Kunst Hans Hollein has accomplished an unusual architectural feat. He has succeeded in creating a triangular building which not only fits neatly into the triangular space available to him, but which is an experience to discover, and leaves a lasting impression on the visitor.

Very few people who enter the »slice of cake« have any idea of what the building looks like from the inside. The architecture is characterized by a succession of elements linking the different exhibition rooms – namely a series of passages offering varying perspectives on the rooms themselves. What gives the architecture dramatic tension is the relationship between the individual rooms, their proportions, and the particular forms of lighting used throughout the building.

Because the ground-plan of the building itself is so idiosyncratic, the rooms at the MMK, around 40 in total, are so individual in layout that it is difficult to compare them with the rooms in any other museum building.

The reactions of visitors to the museum have been extremely positive. When we received a visit from Raul de Keyser, the Belgian artist, he later told us that this was the first time he had been able to stand being in a museum for longer than one hour. To his amazement two hours had elapsed by the time he came to leave the Museum für Moderne Kunst. This demonstrates just what a stimulating effect can be produced by a high standard of architecture and a museum layout which allows for interplay between the viewer, the artists and their art.