The precursor to MONA, the Moorilla Museum of Antiquities, was founded in 2001 by Tasmanian millionaire David Walsh.[1] It closed on 20 May 2006[2] to undergo $75 million renovations.

The new museum was officially opened on 21 January 2011, coinciding with the third MOFO festival. The afternoon opening party was attended by 1,350 invited guests. 2,500 members of the public were selected by random ballot for the evening event which included performances by The DC3, True Live, The Scientists of Modern Music, Wire, Health and The Cruel Sea.[3]

The single-storey MONA building appears at street level to be dominated by its surroundings, but its interior possesses a spiral staircase that leads down to three larger levels of labyrinthine display spaces built into the side of the cliffs around Berriedale peninsula.[4][5] The decision to build it largely underground was taken, according to Walsh, to preserve the heritage setting of the two Roy Grounds houses on the property. Walsh has also said that he wanted a building that "could sneak up on visitors rather than broadcast its presence ... 'a sense of danger' that would enliven the experience of viewing art".[6] Most visitors approach by ferry up the River Derwent.[5]

There are no windows and the atmosphere is intentionally ominous. On entering the museum, visitors descend a "seemingly endless flight of stairs", an experience one critic compared with "going down into Petra".[6] To see the art, the visitor must work back upwards towards the surface, a trajectory that has been contrasted with the descending spiral that many visitors follow in New York's Guggenheim Museum.[7]

Katsalidis's architecture for the museum has been praised as not only fulfilling its function as a showcase for a collection, but also succeeding as it "extends and magnifies into an experience ... there is a sense that the work, the lighting, the space and the materiality have been choreographed with subtlety and skill into a singular if hugely idiosyncratic whole."[7]

Operational costs of A$8 million per annum are underpinned by the winery, brewery, restaurant and hotel on the same site.[8] In May 2011, it was announced that the museum would end its policy of free entry and introduce an entry fee to interstate and overseas visitors while remaining free for Tasmanians.[9]

MONA also offers an unusual membership program called "Eternity Membership", which not only includes lifetime free admission but notably earns members the right to be cremated and their remains housed in the MONA Cemetery.[10][11]