MUMOK Vienna’s 9000-piece collection expressionism, cubism, minimal art and Viennese Actionism.

Noir, bold, smooth, rounded, monolithic and incredibly seductive, Vienna's Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, MUMOK for short, sits au courant against the Habsburg grandeur. An anchor point in the vast MuseumQuartier, this venue houses Vienna's premier collection of 20th-century art, taking in Fluxus, nouveau realism, pop art and photorealism. Rotating, thematic exhibitions also showcase the museum's 9000-strong collection of expressionism, cubism, minimal art and Viennese Actionism.

Ortner&Ortner architects designed the MUMOK, a practice founded by the Ortner brothers Laurids (born May 26th, 1941) and Manfred (November 3rd, 1943). They were born in Linz in Austria. They established the practice in 1987 in Düsseldorf. It now has offices in Vienna, Berlin and Cologne.

A dark, closed block, the curved roof is pulled far down at the corners; the entire building is enclosed in a 12-cm-thick shell made of basalt lava. An outdoor flight of steps, 10 metres wide, leads to the entrance level that lies 4 metres higher than the level of the courtyard. Ortner&Ortner has ingeniously connected urban energy fields to create a symphonic alliance of old and new, art and recreation, artists and audience.

Home to Viennese Actionism artists like Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler hang alongside Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, René Magritte, Max Ernst and Alberto Giacometti, Dorit Margreiter and Yto Barrada.

The Ludwig Foundation Museum of Modern Art is part of an enormous cultural complex, the Museumsquartier, covering a total area of some 60,000 m² and situated in the baroque block that was formerly the Imperial Stables of Vienna. Of the original design by Fischler von Erlach (1716), only the 350 metre-long façade facing the Vienna Ring remains.