The Frankfurt Kunst Museum is designed as a non-collecting arts institution. Its mission is not to preserve, but to provoke - to challenge assumptions about the role of creative expression, to break down the divisions between art and everyday life. In the context of this institution, art is no longer regarded as a commodity, rather it is something to be experienced, remembered, and shared with others. With this understanding lies the genesis of the design.

The site is located on a park next door to Richard Meier's 1984 Decorative Arts Museum. The park is situated next to the River Main, in between a residential neighborhood and the city center of Frankfurt. A pathway within the park, first established by Meier, serves as a pedestrian commuter route between the neighborhood and the city.

The museum claims this pathway and reuses it to bring together the commuter and the art inside. The solid west wall is pulled away from the overall mass to reveal the artwork through a transparent glass wall along the re-purposed pathway, creating an inward focus across the site while shielding the artwork from the western sun.