Okay, so “MUMOK” isn’t the most original museum acronym in the world.

With its sheer façade of dark gray basalt lava and its narrow window slits, you might find MUMOK a little intimidating at first. But if you’ve had your fill of Hapsburg castles and Jugendstil belles, you’ll be relieved to discover a vibrant mix of Modernism concealed behind the museum’s rather grave exterior.

MUMOK boasts a collection of about 9,000 twentieth-century objects, comprising paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photography and new media. Museum highlights include works by pop artists Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein, the majority of which were donated to the museum in the 1990s by philanthropists Peter and Irene Ludwig.