Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg
A four-metre bronze horse stands on the roof, and that sets the tone. Mimmo Paladino's Hortus conclusus watches over the River Ill while below, Adrien Fainsilber's building stretches out across nearly 10,000 square metres, its central glass nave running 104 metres long and 22 metres high — a cathedral of a different kind, right at the edge of Petite France.
Inside, the municipal collection runs to more than 18,000 works: paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, prints gathered and grown since 1871. The café restaurant Le Docks opens onto the river, and the terrace frames a view that takes in the Vauban dam and the cathedral spire in a single glance.
💛 What travellers fall for
Return visitors tend to arrive on the first Sunday of the month, when entry is free, and head straight for the nave before the school groups do. The Fibonacci neon sequence on the Petite-France façade is easy to walk past — worth stopping for at dusk. Place Jean-Arp out front has quietly become a skate spot the museum tolerates rather than discourages.
The story behind Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg
Strasbourg's municipal art collection has been accumulating since 1871, the year Alsace-Lorraine became a German Reichsland and the city began building civic institutions to match its new administrative weight. The collection outlasted every change of sovereignty, but for over a century it had no purpose-built home.
In 1987 the municipal council finally voted to create a dedicated museum. Construction on the left bank of the Ill began in 1995, led by Parisian architect Adrien Fainsilber — already known for the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie. The building opened on 6 November 1998, inaugurated by Catherine Trautmann, then Minister of Culture and former mayor of Strasbourg.
Good to know
Tram line B drops you at the dedicated 'Musée d'Art moderne' stop. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–6pm on weekends, with a midday break on weekdays. Closed Mondays and on major public holidays. General admission €7; free for under-18s.
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What travellers say about Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg
Nice art museum! It is a decent size, with a few pieces from well known artists (Picasso, Kandinsky, Renoir, and others). €7.50 for entry fee is a pretty good price. Most artworks only has descriptions in French. A few of their major exhibitions had narratives in English and German as well
Nice museum with an interesting mix of modern and contemporary art. Some pieces were really impressive and unique, though a few exhibits felt a bit underwhelming. The space is well organized and easy to walk through, and it wasn’t too crowded which made it more enjoyable. Worth a visit if you’re into modern art.
A real mix of the globally-known big names (Kandinsky, Picasso, Rodin, Ernst, Chagall, Kupka, ...), but also many more local big names (Atassi, Cahn, Vallotton, Carabin, Dore, Baumeister, Leccia, ...). As ever, it being modern art, you can take or leave individual pieces. And all curated brilliantly in a fab modern museum. The building itself merits mention as a nice, bright, cavernous space, with some great exterior artwork. Price-wise, it was a very reasonable €7.5 (IIRC), and we had a great 2 hours visiting all the exhibits. Don't miss the cafe on the roof terrace.
We visited during the free entrance on the first Easter Sunday of the month. 05.04.2025. I really liked the mixture of contemporary and classical art in this museum. It was spacious and we could move around freely and take our time with the pieces. I am a fan of classical art and I left this museum feeling happy and invigorated. Oh also one of the 28 The Thinker statue of the Auguste Rodin is here.
Worth a visit if you have a bit of spare time in Strasbourg. 1,5 hours is enough to see all the exhibitions. I enjoyed the most the old works, not so much the modern part.
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