As Ghent’s Design Museum reopens this month, discover these design-led highlights from the city for your autumn weekend break itinerary. While it’s known for UNESCO World Heritage monuments, including the medieval Gravensteen castle and 15th-century Gothic St Bavo’s Cathedral with a famed altarpiece painting by the Van Eyck brothers, you’ll also find remarkable modernist architecture.
An architectural tour of Ghent
Ghent has buildings such as the 1930s Book Tower and Juliaan Lampens’ iconic Brutalist house. Plus, there’s a lively cultural scene – from museums to experimental galleries and the wondrously hybrid Wintercircus. Scroll down for our architecture and design tour.
The Get
This year, Belgian architect Glenn Sestig, master of refined architectural atmospheres, has adapted a former supermarket into an experimental gallery named THE GET, which ajoins his new office. It’s a huge, raw space, full of potential for collaborations, with an absorbing black-stone entrance. The inaugural exhibition sparked an eerie dialogue between the works of design duo Middernacht & Alexander and multidisciplinary artist Bernard T. Sestig. In October, the exhibition ‘Wunderkammer Reimagined,’ curated by Scott Lippens, founder of Antwerp’s Uppercut Gallery, brings together a contemporary cabinet of curiosities featuring the likes of Linde Freya Tangelder, Wendy Andreu, Minjae Kim, Lionel Jadot, Lukas Gschwander and Kiki Goti – to name a few.
‘Wunderkammer Reimagined’ opens 2 October 2026
THE GET by Glenn Sestig
Sint-Annaplein 7
9000 Ghent
S.M.A.K.
Daniel Buren, Le Décor et son Double, 1986. Long term loan. Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap
In 1986, S.M.A.K. museum director Jan Hoet encouraged art to escape from museum walls and into the homes of Ghent. Fifty-one artists – including Janis Kounellis, Maria Nordman, and Lawrence Weiner – were paired up with homeowners to create site-specific works inside a single ‘guest’ room. The city-wide exhibition attracted queues of curious locals – becoming so popular it was even televised.
This year, an exhibition celebrates its 40th anniversary with archive material and new installations by artists Heike Pallanca, Haim Steinback and Susanne Kreimann. Daniel Buren’s 1986 contribution (reconstructed in 2011) is also on display: a replica of the guest room that he installed at the home of art collectors Anton and Annick Herbert. Titled ‘Le Décor et son Double,’ the dual room work is the same, except for its inverse pink wall painting, offering a mind-bending critique of the public and private display of art.
'Chambres d’Amis turns 40’ is at S.M.A.K, until 10 January 2027
S.M.A.K (Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art)
Jan Hoetplein 1
9000 Ghent
Herbert Foundation
The former home of art collectors Anton (1938-2021) and Annick Herbert (1940-2025) inside a former 1920s frame factory was converted in the 1980s by the couple with architect André Platel. The large factory rooms exhibit impressive works by the likes of Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, On Kawara, Bruce Nauman, Franz West, Thomas Schütte and other outstanding examples of minimalist, conceptual and abstract art, collected between 1968 and 1989.
Open to the public since 2013, Herbert Foundation this autumn hosts an exhibition of the films and documents of Andy Warhol, with 22 films on loan from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and books, magazines, and posters from the collection. The Herberts were avid archivists of printed matter as an important art form: ‘The archives for us constituted an answer to the balloon of power and money that threatened the art world. Documents are about the substantive essence, devoid of spectacle.’
‘All Tomorrow’s Parties. Films and documents of Andy Warhol’, 27 September 2026 - 27 June 2027.
Herbert Foundation
Coupure Links 627/A
9000 Gent
Boekentoren
This innovative, concrete early Modernist architectural icon was designed by renowned Belgian architect Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) from 1930 to 1935 to house the university’s collection of books, manuscripts, architectural plans and more, which were stacked into its soaring concrete 20-storey tower (64 metres). The public, light-filled reading rooms stretch out horizontally at ground level, and above the stack, there’s the panoramic Belvedère, a cinematic event space (once commandeered by the Nazis).
The complex is currently being restored by a team led by Ghent architects Robbrecht en Daem, ongoing since 2007. They’ve designed a new three-level, climate-controlled underground book depository beneath the building’s historic courtyard, containing 40 km of books, manuscripts, coins, newspapers and magazines. Yet there’s still more to do, including a future reading café and visitors centre that will provide access to the Boekentoren’s stack, currently only possible to visit in small groups.
Wintercircus
Ghent’s 19th century Wintercircus – reconstructed in the 1920s, then transformed into a car garage after WWII – has been transformed yet again. Today, it’s a hub for innovation with co-working spaces, a rooftop bar, underground club and more. Commissioned by the City of Ghent and operated by TENT (a consortium of entrepreneurial local businesses), it’s been created for cross-pollination between start-ups, students, creatives and the public.
Found in the De Krook neighbourhood (near the central library, a layered contemporary building by RCR and Coussée & Goris), the epic architecture has been adapted by a collaborative team of studios (including BARO, SUMProject and Atelier Kempe Thill) to preserve its layered heritage from the steel roof structure, to the red concrete floors, former elephant ramps and original petrol pumps. OYO Architects, behind the interior, focused on reuse, including employing demolition debris, innovative circular materials and vintage car lamps.
Wintercircus
Lammerstraat 13
9000 Gent
Museum Dhondt Dhaenens and the Van Wassenhove House
Van Wassenhove House, 1974
Most probably on your Brutalist bucket-list, the Woning Van Wassenhove is a concrete cave of geometry and light, a total work of architecture with integrated furniture, designed 1972–1974 by Belgian architect Juliaan Lampens (1926-2019) for Albert Van Wassenhove, a professor and art collector. Located in the leafy Ghent suburb of Sint-Martens-Latem, the house is today part of the Museum Dhondt Dhaenens, which focuses on 20th- and 21st-century art, just a short drive away.
This year, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Juliaan Lampens, the museum, with the Juliaan Lampens Foundation and the Flemish Architecture Institute, is hosting a symposium and exhibition dedicated to the architect, offering a thorough insight into the architect’s thinking and methods. The house will be open to the public during the exhibition’s run.
The symposium is on 5 November 2026, and the exhibition ‘Juliaan Lampens 1926-2026’ runs 29 November 2026 – 14 March 2027
Ghent Design Museum
Belgium’s Ghent Design Museum, the biggest of its kind in the country, has recently reopened after a revamp led by British architects Carmody Groarke alongside local architects Atama. The extensive project has been one of expansion, consolidation, as well as heritage restoration by specialist studio Re-st, with a new circulatory loop carved through the museum’s existing historic buildings and the route completed with a new low-carbon entrance wing.