The Museum of Modern Art’s new Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building –– an eight-story facility that includes classrooms, libraries, a theater, and two screening rooms –– is more than just another museum expansion. The building, which officially opens next week, is a physical expression of how museums see themselves in the 21st century: their sense of social responsibility and the emphasis they place on building their audiences through educational classes and activities.

The new building, which wraps around the museum’s sculpture garden, to the east of the galleries, is the last part of the architect Yoshio Taniguchi’s design to be completed. Its first three, public floors include classrooms, a theater, and a welcome area. The upper floors comprise the research areas –– libraries for all of the departments, as well as the museum’s substantial archives –– which are open to researchers by appointment.

Tonight, as part of a weeklong celebration of the building’s opening, a round-table discussion on how to engage visitors with art will be held in the new building’s Celeste Bartos Theater. The speakers are the Harvard education guru Howard Gardner, the art historian James Elkins, and the deputy director of the Dallas Museum of Art, Bonnie Pitman. (Tickets are free but limited, so arrive early.)

Although MoMA’s education and research programs are not new, the building is a tangible symbol of the museum’s dedication to them.

“If you go to almost any other museum, education is in the basement or invisible,” MoMa’s deputy director for education, Wendy Woon, said. “To have created such an exquisite building, that is so welcoming in its scale and its amazing facilities, is really a testament to the museum’s commitment to education.”

Another longtime trustee, June Larkin, provided the initial encouragement to build an expanded educational facility as part of the museum’s new physical plant, according to MoMA’s director, Glenn Lowry. (Ms. Larkin’s family name, Noble, was on the education center in the old MoMA and remains in the new building.) “She was urging us to think big and to try to do something innovative,” Mr. Lowry said.

It was Mr. Taniguchi who proposed putting the educational and research facilities in a separate building, Mr. Lowry said. Impressed by his ambitious design, the Cullmans, who support several programs around the city related to education, stepped forward to support it. (The museum would not disclose the amount of their gift, nor the budget for the building. The overall budget for the construction of the new museum was $425 million.)

MoMA’s education program includes academic courses for adults, including survey courses on modern art, with a focus on MoMA’s collection, as well as specialized courses in topics such as abstract art and contemporary Chinese art. Ten-week courses cost $500 ($425 for members). In addition, there are free programs for families and visitors with special needs: deaf or hard-ofhearing adults, individuals with learning or developmental disabilities, and a program for people with Alzheimer’s disease. There are also classes for teenagers, students, and teachers.

Education has taken a more prominent role in museums’ missions in the last 15 years, Ms. Pitman said. She was the chairwoman of an American Association of Museums task force on education in the early 1990s, which published a report called “Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums.” Museums around the country followed its advice, incorporating educational goals into their mission statements and seeking funding specifically for educational programs.

“Education departments are extremely powerful in museums now, in part for the kind of funding they can attract,” the director of a program in museum studies at New York University, Bruce Altshuler, said. “It’s not a venal thing, but it happens to be that often municipal, federal, and state money goes for educational programming.”

The former director of education at MoMA (who is now the director of the Brooklyn Historical Society), Deborah Schwartz, said the museum spent the last few years rethinking its education programming. The adult academic courses –– now a popular part of the museum’s programming and one with the potential to produce income –– started in January 2005.”Within a year we had this huge program that just got bigger and bigger,” Ms. Schwartz said. (The fall courses this year were oversubscribed, and the museum is adding another night of classes.)

The education staff also used the test run to figure out the kinds of physical spaces and technology they needed in the new building. “”We were trying to look into the future,” Ms. Schwartz said –– for instance, creating seminar rooms where a group of teachers could theoretically carry on a videoconference with a group of teachers in another country, partly live and partly over the Internet.

MoMA’s libraries and archives have long been a resource for scholars of the history of modern art. “I did my first book practically living in MoMA’s library,” Mr. Altshuler said. In the new building, researchers will enjoy both more space and a tranquil, contemplative atmosphere. A sixth-floor reading room accommodates 40 people and has an outdoor terrace overlooking the sculpture garden.

“I wrote to Yoshio Tanuguchi,” Mr. Cullman said. “I said, ‘Yoshio, this is absolutely spectacular. But I’m concerned that most of the people will be up on that porch looking at the view, and nobody will do their work!'”