The art museums in the Kunstareal (Art District) in Munich have received major investment in new buildings and refurbishment over the last decade, which reinforces the international importance of the collections and the museums which house them.

In September 2002, the Pinakothek der Moderne, designed in international museum style by German architect Stephan Braunfels, opened to provide a building of 22,000 sq m with galleries arranged around a large central rotunda from which grand staircases connect the floors, with the art collection on the first floor, architecture and graphic works on the ground floor and extensive galleries for the large design collection on the lower floor.

Following this, the Museum Brandhorst opened in May 2009. Designed by the Berlin architects Sauerbruch Hutton, the Museum houses the collection of Anette Brandhorst and her husband Udo Fritz-Hermann which was donated to the State of Bavaria on the condition that it be housed in an appropriate home. The façade of this two story rectangular building is itself a work of art, comprising 36,000 vertical ceramic louvres in 23 different coloured glazes and perhaps sets a precedent for the new extension to the Lenbachhaus. The museum houses a comprehensive selection of work by Andy Warhol, Cy Twomly and many other international modern artists.

More recently, in 2013, the new Museum of Egyptian Art opened as part of a new building with the University of Television and Film, Designed by Peter Böhm Architekten with Exhibition Design by Die Werft, the building provided 19,907 m2 of space for the University and 9,759 m2 for the Museum at a cost of 70 million euros.  Above ground is a modern building for the University; below ground is the new museum, designed to evoke the  mystery and atmosphere of Egyptian burial chambers, which would have been the original location of many of the items on display, with an entrance marked by a tall modern representation of a pylon gateway to an Egyptian temple.

The most evident recent addition is Norman Foster’s new extension to the Lenbachhaus which wraps around the original house of the painter Franz von Lenbach built between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl.  The house was purchased by the city of Munich as a museum in 1924 and it had subsequent extensions between 1927 and 1929 and between 1969 and 1972.  Foster + Partners architects were selected in competition to refurbish the museum and improve it to meet the needs of the 21^st century.  The designs had to ensure that the historic buildings, garden and Lenbach’s rooms retained their original appearance, but had to address fundamental issues of confusing visitor routes arising from the various additions and the need for more space and facilities to cope with the increasing number of visitors in a modern museum environment..

The main entrance has been relocated to face the primary route that visitors use to reach the museum from the Königsplatz subway station, the central railway station, or across Königsplat and is framed by a new modern extension that counterbalances the side façade of the historic house on the other side of the entrance.   Visitors then enter into a large new atrium dominated by Olafur Eliasson’s artwork around which are located the key museum facilities such as the shop, lecture theatre and café, and from which the visitor can easily access the different wings which wrap around the original building and to the historic rooms above.  The old part of the museum has been refurbished with sensitive use of colour for the interiors so that old and new are integrated together.  As much use as possible has been made of natural light, supplemented by innovative LED technology to enable a high quality of light to enhance the art of display.

The new extension is finished with brass-coloured tubes that mirror the colour of the original building and also compliment the cladding of the Museum Brandhorst built a decade earlier across the park.

The gallery contains an extensive collection of art by Munich painters from the 19^th century onwards and international contemporary artists and is best-known for its collection of paintings by the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of expressionist artists established in Munich in 1911 which included, among others, the painters Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc, August Macke, Marianne von Werefkin, and Paul Klee.

Works of art which use lighting technology have been installed throughout the gallery, including installations by Dan Flavin, Olafur Eliasson, Dietmar Tanterl ,Michel Majerus, Lucio Fontana, Angela Bulloch, Cerith Wyn Evans, Keith Sonnier, and James Turrell.

A short walk away is a hidden space – the Kunstbau – an underground gallery in a concrete cavern left empty when the Königsplatz subway station was built and which was opened as a gallery in 1994 with an installation conceived for the space by Dan Flavin. The subterranean gallery was refurbished by the architect Uwe Kiessler as simply as possible to make the most of the volume and height of the space by hiding the ventilation system behind a new curtain wall and inserting a small room for light-sensitive works and a lecture theatre, while unifying the space with  new maple wood floor.  This cavernous space is now a popular exhibition area for contemporary art and special exhibitions.

Investment continues; – the Alte Pinakothek, built in the early 19^th century to house the Wittelsbach Collection, has a rolling four year programme from 2014-2018 to renew the lighting to its galleries for optimum use of daylight and reduction in the museum’s carbon footprint.  In doing so, it will address long-standing problems of bright artificial lighting that detracts from the ability of visitors to see darker paintings at high level.

Over the last decade, careful investment has created an international arts district, displaying art from Egyptian and Grecian through to contemporary, in a variety of environments and with museum buildings enhancing the heritage of the last two hundred years with new modern architecture.