Some people visit museums for overall development: they come, acquaint themselves with art, and walk out all shiny: look at me, I’ve just spent two hours staring at paintings, don’t I deserve a great lunch? There are no less than a dozen traditional museums in the center of Strasbourg for such an audience.

Those who can distinguish Monet from Manet and Dore from Miro are invited to the MAMCS (Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art). The museum is located on the site of a former slaughterhouse on the Ill River banks, on the edge of the old town, and is reachable by tram and bus. Many visitors come here, attracted by the big names of Rodin, Gauguin, Renoir, Pissarro, Matisse, but get disappointed as soon as they learn that there are only one or two works of these artists in the museum collection, and they are displayed in the hall at the entrance. But what do the remaining 4.5 thousand square meters house? The MAMCS building itself should be an exhibit of its own museum. The huge glass rectangular block resembles a construction of children’s colored cubes. Here, the museum was opened in 1998. The collection was founded by a mysterious patron, who asked not to disclose his name. He donated his private collection of paintings and sculptures to Strasbourg in the 70s of the 20th century. Now the fund has 18,000 works, including 2,000 paintings, 5,000 pieces of graphics, and 800 sculptures. The gem of the museum is the world’s most extensive collection of drawings by Gustave Dore, illustrator of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He has three halls in the museum. The exposition is divided into two: modernist art (from 1870) with works by Braque, Picasso, Magritte, Chagall, Kandinsky, and contemporary art (from the 60s of the 20th century to the present day). There are many unfamiliar names in these rooms, including those of local artists developing new art styles. Graphics and photography are presented separately. The Art Nouveau room is decorated with the works by Rene Lalique, one of the founders of the movement, a native of Strasbourg. On the second floor, there is ExperiMAMCS for children. Any child can join the creation of scrap collages and thereby contribute to contemporary art.