The general popularity of contemporary museum buildings began in the 1970s. The Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris demonstrated how a museum could open itself up to the city, how it could become a public forum and shed its cloak of pathos. As a consequence, museums acquired increasingly manifold functions over and above their central duties of collecting, conserving and educating. They became meeting places and venues for events, provided towns or entire regions with a platform for their own aims, but also served as a point of identification in an increasingly global environment. The days in which museums simply preserved and presented works of art are long gone. Contemporary museum buildings have to meet any number of new requirements. "Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings" discusses the most important trends in modern architecture and, at the same time, documents increasingly intensive exchanges on an international level, portraying outstanding,...