SINCE the Second World War, Munich's collections of modern art, graphics, architecture and design have led a disjointed existence in inadequate, makeshift lodgings. Plans for a new museum, discussed since the 1970s, finally materialised in 1990, but construction proceeded slowly and sporadically as the estimated costs exceeded the budget of two hundred million Deutschmarks. After protracted debates, the Pinakothek der Moderne finally opened last autumn. Situated just across the street from the traditional side entrance of the Alte Pinakothek, the new museum is roughly double the size of the older building, with some 12,000 square metres of exhibition space.

Set back from the street at a discreet distance, the massive concrete-and-glass structure possesses a slightly bland elegance (Fig. 1). If Stephan Braunfels's design is neither bold nor distinctive enough for inclusion in an architectural tourist's itinerary, neither does it fall prey to the fashion for museums as grand statements that treat their contents as an afterthought. Instead, the Pinakothek der Moderne provides largely satisfying spaces for its four collections: the Bayerische Staatsgemaildesammlungen, with works from German Expressionism to the present; the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, an outstanding collection spanning seven centuries; the Architekturmuseum of the Technische Universitait Miinchen, whose holdings of architectural models, drawings and photographs are unsurpassed in Germany; and the pioneering Neue Sammlung, whose focus ranges from classic modern furniture to recent computer design.

In addition to bringing together these collections under one roof, the Pinakothek der Moderne is also intended to play a larger urban r81e. Munich's most important museums are located between the centre and the district of Schwabing, a zone mostly reduced to rubble during the Second World War. Reconstruction occurred piecemeal, and the Kunstareal has long been something of a no-man's land, edged by a traffic ring and chock-a-block with office developments. The Pinakothek der Moderne is to act as a new point of entry for this area, and planners hope that pedestrians will use the north and south entrances opening onto a large central rotunda as a public passage (Fig.2). The appearance of a single building is not sufficient to transform the area, but its impact may yet be strengthened by forthcoming plans to integrate the museum more fully into its surroundings. Furthermore, the Sammlung Brandhorst, a formidable private collection of modern art, will eventually take up residence next door in a new building by Sauerbruch/Hutton.

As the public use of the rotunda indicates, openness is an important theme of the new museum, which relies less on didactic wall texts and interactive exhibits than on works themselves to generate enthusiasm. The new building takes the classic galleries and overall design of the Alte Pinakothek as its point of departure, from the natural light that pours through skylights to the dramatic sweep of its central staircase (Fig.3). In the Pinakothek der Moderne the sweep cuts diagonally through the rotunda, with the staircase running down at one end to the Neue Sammlung's space and up at the other to the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, which commands the first floor. The ground floor provides galleries for the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung and the Architekturmuseum, plus a restaurant and shop; large windows at one end of the building allow passers-by to look into the Neue Sammlung's impressive two-tiered display of automobiles. The white-walled galleries provide well modulated light, although few rooms are particularly large, an unfortunate limitation given the expansive scale of much modern art. More successful are the more generously proportioned public spaces, where the architecture's openness ensures that even the basement benefits from abundant daylight.

As might be expected, each collection's curators have responded euphorically to the end of their long wait. As a result, virtually every space is over-hung. The Neue Sammlung's largest galleries display objects from floor to ceiling and even employ two paternosters. Such theatrics do little harm to large objects, but subtler items can be overwhelmed. In other places, works are hung disconcertingly high. A cluster of architectural drawings towering over visitors' heads is impressive but impractical, while those interested in an exquisite series of paintings by Sigmar Polke installed far above the central staircase may yearn for a pair of binoculars. These excesses create a visual chatter that obscures the more serious question of how the four collections actually interrelate. As the museum's new handbook makes clear, an interdisciplinary synergy is the goal, and at points this occurs with little effort.' Architectural drawings and models resonate with process-oriented contemporary graphics nearby, while aesthetic and theoretical links between design and architecture abound. But to go beyond such incidental connexions to a more substantial dialogue will require greater cooperation.

There must also be a more thorough attempt to involve the Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, which claims the largest portion of the museum's space but remains for the most part separate from the other three collections, its holdings installed in a roughly chronological plan that places art to 1950 at one end of the upper floor and art after 1950 at the other. Its best galleries focus on a single artist, such as Max Beckmann, Joseph Beuys, or Dan Flavin; thematic installations often fall flat, with inexplicable choices sabotaging otherwise compelling statements. In a comparably misplaced decision, the Staatsgemaldesammlungen's curators decided that contemporary art - which hitherto they have scarcely had the opportunity to exhibit - was the most appropriate way to engage the other three collections for the inaugural installation. Accordingly they have populated the groundfloor areas expressly designed for intercollection contact with a selection of videos and a large installation piece. Such decisions unfortunately alienate the older works on view - primarily paintings and sculptures - from the possibility of interchanges both with objects from other collections as well as later developments in art. Without a developed sense of context, contemporary art may appear to be little more than a series of appropriations from other realms of activity, including those represented in the other three collections. These false steps probably result from an ambitious desire to present as much as possible, rather than from any real conceptual failing. As such, they are both forgivable and relatively easy to correct. Creating a sense of exchange among four such distinct collections will require more than simple physical proximity, but a balanced sense of interaction is likely to develop as the novelty of a new home begins to fade. In time, the excited chatter should quiet into an extended conversation, one that has been held off for far too long.

' Pinakothekd er Moderne:A Handbook.Texts by Reinhold Baumstark, Carla Schulz- Hoffmann, Michael Semff, Winfried Nerdinger and Florian Hufnagl. 304 pp. incl. 158 col. pls. + 25 b. & w. ills. (Pinakothek-Dumont, Munich and Cologne, 2002), E 16.90. ISBN 3-8321-7264-5.