Where, how, by whom and for what were the first museums of contemporary art created? These are the key questions addressed by Pedro Lorente in this new and expanded edition of his groundbreaking 1998 study, Cathedrals of Urban Modernity. In it he explores the concept and history of museums of contemporary art, and the shifting ways in which they have been imagined and presented. The first part of the book examines the paradigm of the Musée des Artistes Vivants in Paris and its equivalents in the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. The second part, consisting of entirely new material, takes the story from 1930 to the present. An epilogue reviews recent museum developments in the last decades.