The museum's 11,582 square metres (124,670 sq ft) building was designed by Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB Architects in association with Architecture49.

[6] However, in November 2009, the city council of Saskatoon voted to establish a new art museum at the River Landing location.

[8] In 2011, lead patron Ellen Remai donated $15 million toward construction costs of a new art museum, $15 million to support international exhibition programs,[9] and also donated the most comprehensive collection of Picasso linocuts to the future art museum's permanent collection.

[13] The final budget approved to build the museum was $84,634,160, with the remaining $24,095,160 collected through fundraisers and private donors.

[15] In the letter, the artists referred to a Twitter post made by Gormley suggesting violence against Muslims in the wake of the November 2015 Paris attacks.

The design of the building's exterior was based on region's open prairie landscape, and the barns, field sheds, and silos that occupy that space.

[5][25] The exterior steel mesh is a solar shading device and provides a shadowing effect on the building as the sun arcs through the sky.

[24] The design of the copper patina was inspired by the roof of the Delta Bessborough, a hotel located nearby along the South Saskatchewan River.

[27] The glass walls on the ground floor are intended to provide visitors with a sense of "transparency between the interior and the outdoors".

[14] The building also includes an in-house cafe,[28] community atrium, a restaurant, a retail store, two learning studios, a 150-seat theatre, rental spaces, a rooftop patio, and a lounge.

[30] Artists whose works are featured in the Remai Modern's permanent collection includes Rebecca Belmore,[31] Eli Bornstein,[30] Georges Braque,[32] Stan Douglas, Brian Jungen, Jimmie Durham and Haegue Yang.

[21] The Mendel collection has 7,700 works by artists including Emily Carr, Lawren Harris, Cornelius Krieghoff, and murals by William Perehudoff.

As of March 2019, the Mendel collection formally remains in the possession of the Saskatoon Gallery and Conservatory Corporation,[note 4] and will be transferred to the Remai Modern after it receives "Category A" status from Heritage Canada.

[37] In addition to the linocuts, the collection features 23 Picasso ceramics, donated to the museum by Frederick Mulder in 2014.