Art Museum Ranking | the Best 14 – in Europe

This page presents a ranking of modern art museums. All the museums featured here have been personally visited by the site owner. This ranking is highly subjective, but the most important criterion is whether visiting the museum offered a genuine sense of stepping outside everyday life.

A museum’s appeal lies not only in its artworks, but also in the space itself – designed specifically for the act of viewing art. Being in such a space allows visitors to distance themselves from daily routines and mentally reset. This site introduces only those museums where such an experience was truly felt. If any of the articles spark your interest, I encourage you to visit the museum in person.

The museums included in this ranking are evaluated using the following three criteria.
The overall ranking is determined by the total number of stars.

■ Impact : ★★★★★
Whether the experience left a strong and lasting impression.
■ Space : ★★★★★
Whether the museum offered a non-ordinary, immersive spatial experience.
■ Uniqueness : ★★★★★
Whether the museum, including its exhibitions, demonstrated a strong sense of originality.

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#1 : Guggenheim Bilbao Museum (Bilbao, Spain)
Museum in Basque country, dedicated to activate the town. The heterogeneity of the building and the space inside are full of extraordinary.
(Feb 23 2020)

#2 : Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (Humlebaek, Denmark)
A suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark. Museum like an ordinary house in a quiet residential area. After marvel at the radical works, the seascape appears in front.(described on Jun 22 2024)

#3 : Kolumba Museum(Koln, Germany)
Cologne, Germany. The space with white ceiling, white walls, and a white floor, admire the exquisite balance of antique art and modern paintings.(Feb 10 2019)(Apr 5 2024 updated)

#4 : Humburger Bahnhof Museum (Berlin, Germany)
Surprising at the special structure of the old station building in Berlin. Intoxicated by the excellent space with Japanese conceptual artworks.
(described on Feb 10 2019)(latest update on Apr 20 2024)

#5 : Punta della Dogana (Venice, Italy)
Venice, Italy. Tadao Ando renovated the building that was once used as a customs office in a modern style. Admiring the harmony between the brick walls and the contemporary artworks. (Feb 10 2019)(Mar 29 2020 updated)

#6 : Joan Milo Museum (Barcelona, Spain)
Barcelona, Spain. Unusual in this city full of tourists, in a place with relatively few people, putting in a luxurious space where only Milo’s artworks are exhibited. (Feb 10 2019)(Apr 18 2020 updated)

#7 : Contemporary Art of Ibiza (Ibiza, Spain)
Ibiza, Spain. Finding the Museum in the land of “Club Heaven”. Full of aesthetic sense, and it makes me wonder if I am in a private residence.
(Feb 10 2019)(Mar 20 2020 updated)

#8 : K20/K21 Museum (Dusseldorf, Germany)
Two buildings in Düsseldorf, Germany that separate modern and contemporary, surprised the quality at K20, impressed the hidden power of contemporary art at K21.(Jan 17 2025)

#9 : Lisson Gallery (London, UK)
London, England. Feeling the energy of advanced artworks in a place that can be called as small museum rather than gallery.
(Feb 10 2019)(May 4 2020 updated)

#10 : Dali-Theatre Museum (Figueres, Spain)
Figueres, a suburb of Barcelona, Spain. Checking if there is a correlation between Dali’s artworks expresses the unreal space and the place where Dali grew up.(Feb 10 2019)(May 10 2020 updated)

#11 : Safnasafnid The Fork & Outsider Art (Akreyri, Iceland)
Aqueiri, northern Iceland. Like a model for a privately running museum in a remote area, amazing at the existence of museum.
(described on Feb 10 2019)(latest update on May 3 2020)

#12 : Berardo Collection Museum (Lisbon, Portugal)
Lisbon, Portugal. At the end of the western part of Europe, surprising to find a textbook-like place in the Museum of Contemporary Art.
(Feb 10 2019)(May 1 2020 updated)

#13 : ARoS Aarhus Art Museum(Aarhus, Denmark)
3 hours by train from Copenhagen, Denmark. Admired the scale of the art museum in a local city, got stuck in the permanent installation exhibition area.(Apr 13 2024)