Hotel cathedral

S.M.A.K: Citadelpark 9000 Gent

Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art

Dynamic and highly individual. That’s Ghent and it also describes its museum of contemporary art. The permanent collection of top national and international works is presented in continuous interaction with original, often daring exhibitions. Keeping a finger on the pulse. But sometimes it’s salt on the wound too. You can gradually recover from these many impressions in the museum café.

MIAT : Minnemeers 9 9000 Gent

In the Middle Ages, Ghent cloth was known far beyond the national borders. The city remained an important textile centre with an industrial face until the 19th century. The Museum of Industrial Archaeology and Textiles (MIAT) is housed in an old cotton mill and gives a unique picture of the radical technological changes which our society has undergone over the last 250 years. From the upper floor of this light and airy building you can enjoy a wonderful view across the city.

Museum of Fine Arts: Charles de Kerchovelaan 187A 9000 Gent

The strength and the charm of the MSK is the variety of its collection and the way it is presented: never before have the old masters hung so perfectly in place as they do in the fully restored museum. An auditorium, a library, a children’s workshop and a café-restaurant make it into a modern, multifunctional complex where you can spend many happy hours surrounded by things of beauty.

The Collection of Flemish Art

Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Paul Rubens, James Ensor, and many more: their works are on display throughout the world. Nevertheless, nowhere else will you find a fuller picture of these and other world-renowned Flemish artists than in their home country. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Groeninge museum in Bruges and the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent tell the story of the visual arts in the southern Netherlands from the 15th to the 20th century. Their collections have shared a parallel historical development and complement each other perfectly. Together they form the Collection of Flemish Art.

www.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/index.aspx

The House of Alijn : Kraanlei 65 9000 Gent

When you enter the splendid indoor garden of this former place of worship, it seems as if you have left the city. Inside the museum of folklore, you can go even further back in time and discover in the wonderfully recreated interiors how the ordinary people used to live. Old films from the private collections of the inhabitants of Ghent throw an intimate and surprising light on a time and a city which have forever disappeared. Nostalgia arranged in a highly contemporary way.

A museum in Belgium’s oldest psychiatric hospital, built in 1857: you’d be crazy not to pay it a visit. In this wonderful oasis you will find a permanent collection that illustrates the history of psychiatry and an international collection of outsider art or art brut. The temporary exhibitions are also always worth visiting.

Design museum Gent : Jan Breydelstraat 5 9000 Gent

Behind a charming 18th-century façade lurks a modern, airy building. The central eye-catcher is the enormously tall vase by the Italian designer Andrea Branzi. Temporary expositions supplement the marvellous permanent collection. Also, take a look at the striking toilet wing, even if you don’t need to pay a visit.

The STAM, the Museum of the City of Ghent, will rise on the site of the Bijloke Complex. The past, present and future of the city will be presented clearly and enthrallingly so that the STAM becomes the place to start a cultural voyage of discovery in Ghent.

Ghent has something from every period of history and that also applies to the infrastructure of the STAM: the 14th-century abbey, the 17th-century monastery and the new 21st-century development will together form the City Museum that opens in 2010.

Museum A. Vander Haeghen : Veldstraat 82 9000 Gent

The interiors of the Museum Arnold Vander Haeghen appeal enormously to the imagination. The most attractive rooms include the Chinese Salon and reconstruction of the study of Ghent’s Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Maurice Maeterlinck.

Sisters of Charity Museum : Molenaarsstraat 28 9000 Gent

For more information : http://www.archief-museum.zvl.org

Behind the walls of the convent everything was governed by a Rule, determining the pious life of praying and working. Everything seemed so strict and inaccessible. But within these walls there was a lot of life. These pious, hardworking, intelligent, creative women were standing with their two feet in reality.

The exhibition allows you to peep behind the screens. You can see how the Sisters lived - materially, spiritually, organisationally, financially, professionally...

Attention is also paid to the origins of the Congregation and to its historical and cultural heritage. It reflects the multi-cultural diversity of a Congregation that is spread across the world and involved in a variety of services for the betterment of humanity. The exhibition spans a period of over 200 years from 1803 to the present.