DESIGN MUSEUM GENT REOPENS AFTER A FOUR-YEAR RENOVATION AND EXPANSION

Ghent, 6 October 2026 — After a four-year renovation and expansion, Design Museum Gent is finally open again. The museum reopened its doors to the public on Saturday 3 October, revealing a new museum wing, carefully restored historic buildings, new exhibitions and a completely redesigned visitor experience.

The reopening was celebrated with a festive opening weekend, inviting visitors to discover the transformed museum through exhibitions, creative activities, a design market and a courtyard brunch. The celebrations continue across the city with Design Fest Gent, which brings design to a series of unexpected creative locations throughout Ghent until 11 October.

The reopening marks a new chapter for Design Museum Gent. The museum’s historic buildings on Jan Breydelstraat have been restored and connected to an entirely new wing on Drabstraat, designed by London-based architecture practice Carmody Groarke in collaboration with Belgian firm ATAMA. Restoration architect RE-ST was responsible for the restoration and renovation of the existing buildings.

The new architecture brings the museum together as a single, cohesive whole, creating additional space for exhibitions, the collection and public activities. At the same time, it opens up the museum much more directly to the city.

A striking feature of the new wing is its façade, made from bricks whose raw materials consist of 63 per cent local waste streams. In this way, the building itself becomes an example of the questions the museum seeks to raise about how we design, produce and use materials.

The renewed museum does not merely display design; it actively uses and embodies it. Special Design Projects have therefore been integrated throughout the building, ranging from furniture by Casimir and Bram Vanderbeke & Wendy Andreu, to an urban jungle by Bas Smets, acoustic curtains by Chevalier-Masson, and the 3D-printed aluminium entrance gate Freeze Frame 82.2 by Unfold.

The museum thus becomes not only a place where design is displayed, but also one where it is experienced and shared. The new wing itself is deliberately not a neutral box, but a distinctive architectural framework designed to evolve flexibly alongside the museum and its audience.

A museum about how design shapes our world

With the reopening, not only the building has been transformed, but the museum itself. Guided by the idea that ‘Everything is designed — and can be redesigned’, Design Museum Gent explores how design is interwoven with everyday life and with some of today’s major societal challenges.

Design is not merely presented as a collection of exceptional objects. The museum also examines the systems, materials, ideas and choices that shape our world — and how they might be designed differently.

In the revamped collection exhibition Collection: Models from the Past for the Future, historical and contemporary objects are displayed side by side. Through a series of themes, the exhibition shows how designers throughout history have responded to changing needs, technologies and ideas about how we want to live.

Public Matter(s) also takes centre stage in the revamped museum. The exhibition explores the relationship between design and democracy, asking how design helps shape our public spaces, our institutions and the way we live together.

In this way, Design Museum Gent aims to be more than a place where design is preserved and displayed. It positions itself as a laboratory for the future: a public space where designers, researchers, makers and visitors come together, and where design becomes a tool for looking at the world differently — and imagining how it could be redesigned.

New spaces for experimentation and participation

Alongside its opening exhibitions, Design Museum Gent has introduced a number of new spaces where research, experimentation, collaboration and participation take centre stage. They form an important part of the museum’s renewed approach, demonstrating its ambition not only to present design, but also to actively research, question and develop it.

In CO-LAB, seven period rooms at Hotel De Coninck have been transformed into a collective laboratory. Designers, researchers and local communities work together on seven projects addressing topics including queer archiving, ecological co-creation, low-tech energy solutions and open-source tools. The focus is not on the finished design, but on the process and the diverse voices contributing to it.

CONNECT brings this participatory approach directly to the visitor. In this interactive space, design can be touched, tested and used. By inviting visitors to play, create and experiment together, the museum explores how design can connect people.

Digital design culture also has its own space in the renewed museum. Studio Digitaal, situated in and around the historic Louis XVI salon, explores how digital technology, algorithms and AI are changing our relationship with design and the museum’s collection. At its heart is Searcher, the result of a long-standing collaboration between Studio Digitaal and the museum, developed to explore new ways for visitors to discover the digital collection.

Together, these new spaces make Design Museum Gent not only a place where design is collected and displayed, but also a laboratory for research, experimentation and collaboration — one in which visitors themselves can take part.

A new cultural hub for Ghent and Flanders

The transformation of Design Museum Gent is the result of a long-standing collaboration between the museum, the City of Ghent, Flanders and various partners. With its new infrastructure, the country’s largest design museum now has greater opportunities to showcase its collection, provide a platform for new creators and develop collaborations both at home and abroad.

“This extension and refurbishment is not about a bigger museum, but about more than a museum: a community ‘sense-making’ museum with social relevance at the heart of a diverse and complex society.”
​— Katrien Laporte, outgoing director of Design Museum Gent

“With the new wing, Design Museum Gent will have the space and the profile it deserves. We are not only creating space for more design and new creators, but also for cross-fertilisation between disciplines and for the convergence of design, art and everyday life. In doing so, we are giving Ghent’s design sector new scope to grow, whilst at the same time strengthening Ghent’s international position as a leading city of design and culture.”
​— Astrid De Bruycker, alderwoman for Social Progress, Health, Policy on Older People and Culture

“After years of building and refurbishment, it is finally time to experience the Design Museum anew. The jigsaw has been completed, the connection between the historic buildings on this site has been established, and the museum has gained an open, accessible and forward-looking space. I look forward to seeing how the people of Ghent make use of this new space.”
​— Joris Vandenbroucke, Councillor for Mobility, Spatial Planning, Urban Development and Leisure

“Flanders is a destination where culture and creativity inspire visitors from all over the world. The reopening of Design Museum Gent is a fine example of this. As our country’s largest design museum, it brings together heritage and contemporary creations and introduces visitors to the power of design. With the reopening festival and Design Fest Gent, supported by EventFlanders, we invite visitors to discover Ghent and Flanders in a new way.”
​— Leen Gysen, Director-General of Tourism Flanders

Practical information

Design Museum Gent
​Drabstraat 10 (new entrance)
​9000 Ghent

Reopening to the public: Saturday 3 October 2026

Further information: https://designmuseumgent.be/nl

Press

Download the press pack and high-resolution images of the refurbished Design Museum Ghent, the architecture and the new exhibitions here:

Press contact
​Club Paradis
​​
​Albane Paret
​albane@clubparadis.be
​+32 (0)476 57 37 82

Micha Pycke
​micha@clubparadis.be
​+32 (0)486 680 070