Antwerp, Belgium Museums

Interesting museums

Eugen Van Mieghem Museum
The Eugen Van Mieghem Museum exhibits – as the name suggests – works by the painter Eugen Van Mieghem (1875 – 1930).
The painter Van Mieghem is considered a painter of the people and achieved great prestige and even fame, especially through his depictions of simple (port) workers.
The museum opened its doors in 1993 with 150 works by the artist in a house on Beatrijslaan. The move to today’s house, which used to belong to a wealthy shipowner, took place in 2010.
Ernest van Dijckkaai 9
2000 Antwerp
Tel: 0032 – (0) 3 – 211 03 30

Royal Museum of Fine Arts
The museum building from the late 19th century impresses with its imposing facade, the portal of which is surrounded by mighty columns.
The art collection is considered one of the most important in the country. All the major Flemish masters from five centuries are represented here.
The highlights of the collection are the paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals and Anthonis van Dyck.
But the modern department of the museum is also impressive. Works by James Ensor, René Magritte and Paul Delvaux, among others, can be seen here.
Leopold de Waelplaats

Middelheim Museum for Plastic Art
A unique sculpture garden extends under the open sky within the Middelheim Park.
The collection, which is constantly being expanded, includes works by numerous representatives of modern sculpture.
Middelheimlaan 61
www.middelheimmuseum.be/de

MoMu Fashion Museum
Antwerp is a center for fashion design (er). Since 2002 the importance of the city has been taken into account with this fashion museum.
What is exhibited here is what fashion design comes from the famous Antwerp Fashion Academy or the Flanders Fashion Institute.
Nationalestraat 28
www.momu.be

Museum of Archeology, History and Handicrafts
The Museum of City History is housed in the famous “Vleeshuis” (meat house).
The focus of the collection is on artistic and handicraft exhibits that remind of the importance of luxury goods production for the wealth of the city.
Vleeshouwersstraat 38-40

Museum Mayer van den Bergh
An important collection of paintings and sculptures is housed in a neo-Gothic building from the 19th century. The exhibited works range between the Middle Ages, Baroque and Renaissance.
Among the most famous works are two paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Ä., The “Dulle Griet” and the “proverb table”.
Lange Gasthuisstraat 19

Museum for contemporary art
The museum is called “Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp (M HKA)” in Dutch. Founded in 1985 and opened on June 20, 1987, this museum is located in a former grain silo and is a museum of modern and contemporary art.
The basis of the exhibition is the collection of the Gordon Matta-Clark Foundation, which consists of around 150 works by artists from Belgium and other countries according to computerannals.
The museum has an exhibition area of ​​around 4,000 m². Since 2002, changing exhibitions by various artists have been offered on the ground floor of the museum. In contrast, works from the museum’s collection are shown alternately on the upper floors.
Leuvenstraat 32
2000 Antwerp
Tel.:0032 – (0) 3 – 260 99 99
www.muhka.be

Plantin-Moretus Museum
In the Renaissance building in which the museum is located, a well-known printer lived and worked in the 16th century. The printing house, which opened in 1555, was the first industrial printing house in Belgium at the time.
The museum provides an insight into the Flemish patrician way of living and, above all, into the art of printing in the 16th century.
The original printing presses on display are among the oldest in the world. There is also a library in the building with a stock of around 25,000 volumes on the subject of book printing.
Vrijdagmarkt 22

Museum on the River (MAS)
The Museum on the River (Museum Aan de Stroom) was opened in mid-May 2012 between two docks in the city’s old port.
The museum complex brings together the collections of four of the city’s museums:
the Ethnographic Museum, the Folklore Museum, the National Maritime Museum and part of the collection of the Vleeshuis Museum.
The roughly 65 m high building consists of boxes clad with red sandstone from India. The boxes are supposed to symbolize the containers stacked in the local port.
These exhibition boxes are each offset from one another by ninety degrees. The open spaces obtained in this way are open to the outside as loggias with corrugated glass. On an area of ​​around 5,715 m², visitors will find urban historical and ethnological exhibits on the past and present of Antwerp in its relationship to the world. Here you will find a Maori house made of Plexiglas by the New Zealand artist George Nuku, but also numerous ship models from the holdings of the Maritime Museum. The plans for the building come from the architects Neutelings and Riedijk from Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Hanzestedenplaats 1
2000 Antwerp

Museum Vleeshuis
The building in which the museum is located dates back to 1250 and was for a long time the seat of the butchers of Antwerp.
The local museum brings the music and numerous sounds and sounds of the city back to life from the past 600 years.
The visitor can enjoy the sounds from streets and houses as well as dance cafés and discos – but also those from churches, theaters, concert halls and opera houses.
The museum is also a treasure trove for friends of historical musical instruments, old music prints and stories about town musicians, tower blowers or carillon players.
Parts of the museum were relocated to the newly opened Museum am Strom.
Vleeshouwersstraat 38
vleeshuis@stad.antwerpen.be

National Maritime
Museum The museum was located in the “Steen”, the massive castle built at the beginning of the 13th century.
The museum’s extensive collection deals with the history of seafaring.
The museum’s collection was moved to the newly opened museum on the river in 2011.

Rubens House
The painter Peter Paul Rubens lived and worked in the magnificent palatial building from 1615 until his death. He had designed the Renaissance-style building personally.
The museum brings the life and work of Rubens closer to the visitor.
Numerous pictures by the city’s most famous master painter and other well-known contemporaries are exhibited inside the “Palazzo”.
Wapper 9-13

Antwerp, Belgium Museums