Museum of Fine Arts

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.

Fernand Scribedreef 1 9000 Gent

Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K.)

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.

Citadelpark 9000 Gent

St Peter’s Abbey Arts Centre

The refectory wing of St Peter’s Abbey is authentically medieval. The splendid garden with its vineyard and ruins is a green oasis in the heart of the city. The St Peter’s Abbey Arts Centre holds prestigious internationally-oriented exhibitions every year. You can visit the abbey with a unique movie guide.

Sint-Pietersplein 9 9000 Gent

Design museum 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.

Jan Breydelstraat 5 9000 Gent

MIAT (Museum of Industrial Archaeology and Textiles)

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.

Minnemeers 9 9000 Gent

The House of Alijn

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.

Kraanlei 65 9000 Gent

Dr. Guislain Museum

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.

Jozef Guislainstraat 43 9000 Gent

The world of Kina: the House

A unique fossil of a pre-historic reptile, a splendid diorama room with native birds and a replica model of Ghent as it was 450 years ago, with sound and lighting effects. The House is a museum where your children will uncover one surprise after another.

Sint-Pietersplein 14 9000 Gent

The World of Kina: the Garden

More than 1000 plant species, a bee colony and live tarantulas in the Garden. Children and youngsters will know where the action is. Brave parents can also tag along

Berouw 55 9000 Gent

The School of Yesteryear

Back to the old school benches? The School of Yesteryear is housed in a typical school building from 1901. The permanent collection illustrates how education and teaching was experienced more than 100 years ago.

Klein Raamhof 8 9000 Gent

City Museum Ghent

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.
 

Bijlokesite Godshuizenlaan 2 9000 Gent

Museum Arnold Vander Haeghen

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.

Veldstraat 82 9000 Gent

Museum for the History of Sciences

Nothing can halt the advance of science, and it is continually evolving. This is wonderfully illustrated by an extensive collection of scientific instruments used at the university over the past 200 years.

Krijgslaan 281 (S30) 9000 Gent

Illuseum

The Illuseum confounds you with tricks of the eye and optical illusions. Just don’t believe your eyes

Victor Braeckmanlaan 123 9040 Sint-Amandsberg