The St Annen Museum complex occupies what was once an Augustinian convent founded in 1502 and dissolved in the Reformation. The two-storey cloister and refectory now house Lübeck's main collection of medieval art — altarpieces stripped from city churches at the Reformation, Bernt Notke's painted panels, gilded shrines, and a remarkable group of carved Madonnas.
The adjoining modern Kunsthalle St Annen extends the collection into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with works by Edvard Munch (who lived briefly nearby), Emil Nolde, and contemporary northern German artists. Combine the two for the city's best art experience.