It was founded by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich as the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in 2008 and was renamed on 1 May 2014. Since June 2015, it has been housed in a building designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.

As well as providing permanent collections and changing exhibitions, the museum also operates as a research centre. It has archives relating to Russian contemporary art from the 1950s. It also runs educational programmes and publishes material relating to current developments in Russian and international art and culture.

History
When the museum opened in June 2008, it was housed in Moscow’s former Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage, designed in 1926 by the Constructivist architect Konstantin Melnikov, hence the museum’s name. Dasha Zhukova was the first director of museum. The British singer Amy Winehouse gave a private performance at the official opening.

In 2009 it was the main venue for the Third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Jean-Hubert Martin. During the Biennale, over 100,000 people a month visited the Garage Museum.

In 2012, the museum relocated to a temporary pavilion designed by architect Shigeru Ban in Gorky Park before moving to its permanent home on 12 June 2015.

The museum’s new headquarters was originally a modernist building built in 1968 as the Vremena Goda, a Soviet-era restaurant. It was redesigned by Rem Koolhaas specifically for the Garage Museum.