Designed by 德国建筑师Stephan Braunfels,现代艺术陈列馆was inaugurated in September 2002 after 7年 of construction. The rectilinear facade, dominated by white and grey concrete, is interrupted by large windows and highrising columns, the latter supporting the extensive canopied roof. Each of the four corners of the building, connected by a 中央的圆形大厅, is dedicated to a special collection.陈列馆分为艺术、建筑、设计和 Works on Paper (Graphik).

现代艺术陈列馆unifies the "Sammlung Moderne Kunst" (National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Arts, which is under supervision of the Bavarian State Painting Collections), the "Staatliche Graphische Sammlung" (National Collection of Works on Paper), the "Neue Sammlung" ('New Collection': National Museum for Design and Applied Arts) with "Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität" (Munich Technical University's 建筑博物馆), in one building and is deemed one of 最重要的欧洲现代艺术博物馆。

与其它城市相比，慕尼黑受到纳粹政权查禁现代艺术的影响较小 "degenerate art," since only a few modern paintings were already collected by the "Tschudi Contribution" in 1905/1914. Since 1945, however, the collection, previously exhibited in the Haus der Kunst, has grown quickly by purchase, as well as donations by individuals and several foundations. Various art movements of the 20th century are represented in the collection, including Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, New Objectivity, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and Minimal Art. 

The first floor of the west wing displays works of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Umberto Boccioni, Robert Delaunay, Joan Miró and René Magritte as well as Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Kokoschka, László Moholy-Nagy, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon.

The museum also displays masterpieces of German Expressionism: representing painters of two early 20th century German artist groups, Die Brücke (The bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The blue rider), whose members included, among others, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Emil Nolde and Franz Marc, August Macke, Paul Klee, Alexej von Jawlensky and Wassily Kandinsky.

• Contemporary Art since the 1960s

The museum also gives very profound insights into international contemporary art. In the first floor of the east wing the gallery displays works of Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Jannis Kounellis, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Antoni Tàpies, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, George Segal, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Fred Sandback, Joseph Beuys, Blinky Palermo, Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Per Kirkeby, Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Bruce Nauman, Marlene Dumas, Günther Förg, Jörg Immendorff, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, David Salle, Rosemarie Trockel, David Hockney, Hermann Nitsch and many others.

• Video, Photos and New Media

The Pinakothek houses works of artists like John Baldessari ("Man running/Men carrying box" 1988-1990), Bruce Nauman ("World Peace (projected)" 1996), Pipilotti Rist ("Himalaya Goldsteins Stube" 1998/1999), Hiroshi Sugimoto ("World Trade Center, Minoru Yamazaki" 1997), Bill Viola ("Tiny Death" 1993), Sam Taylor-Wood ("Soliloquy III" 1998) and Jeff Wall with his back-lit boxes ("Eviction Struggle" 1988; "A villager from Aricaköyu arriving in Mahmutbey, Istanbul September 1997")

The Bavarian State collection of work on paper has its origin in the Wittelsbach collections, especially in the print room collection of Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria. The ground floor shows alternating exhibitions of one of the most important collection of works on paper in Germany, with old German, Dutch and Italian drawings ( including masterpieces of Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci ) and German and international drawings of the 19th - 21st century, e.g. from Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and David Hockney.

The Collection of applied modernist art was founded in 1925. With around 70.000 objects of industrial design, graphic design and the arts and crafts the "Neue Sammlung" is today one of the world's leading museums of 20th century applied art, and indeed the largest of industrial design. Parts of the expanded collection are exhibited in the basement of the Pinakothek der Moderne. Among others objects about motor vehicle design, computer culture, design of artistic jewelry and furnitures (e.g. the collection of chairs of Michael Thonet) are exhibited. 

The museum of the Technical University of Munich started with a donation of King Ludwig II of Bavaria for the newly-founded university in 1868 and is today the largest one in Germany. The museum shows altering exhibitions in the ground floor. The collection shows especially drawings, blueprints, photographs, models and computer animations about the work of notable architects like François de Cuvilliés, Balthasar Neumann, Gottfried Semper, Le Corbusier or Günther Behnisch.