• When the bones speak

    A woman over a thousand years old had been recovered with no name, no headstone and no jewellery. And yet we were able to get a very close idea about her life by studying her remains. What was supposed to be a small-scale investigation grew into a full-blown detective story in St Peter's Abbey.

Blog posts

  • In Ghent a short chain is the rule

    Are you someone who likes to know where the food you buy comes from? Who produced them, how they are produced, what you can do with them? Then, like me, you’re a fan of a short-chain food system, where the food on your plate has passed through as few intermediaries as possible. Local products and a short food chain are big in Ghent.
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  • The new old lamb

    Large swathes of the Ghent Altarpiece had been painted over. That took place several times in the centuries after Van Eyck. Even the lamb got a facelift. It now looks us in straight in the eye once again, like it was originally intended. But why did subsequent generations decide to make alterations to this masterpiece?
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  • Van Eyck: seeing is believing

    How can mortals ever truly perceive God? This is a theological discussion people had been having for centuries in Van Eyck’s time. The artist himself attempted to answer this question through his art. He had a vision like no other and converted it into in oil paintings. But before we talk about this in more detail, we need to talk about something else first. Ghentians of that time never saw the Ghent Altarpiece the way we do today.
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  • A new exhibition space for the Ghent Altarpiece

    Since 2021, the Ghent Altarpiece has been displayed at a new location in the cathedral. This is the third time the painting has been given a new spot. We were pretty nervous about this relocation, but after centuries, the work can once again be seen in its original splendour.
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  • Ghent as an industrial giant of the past

    Industry and Ghent have been inextricably linked for three centuries. You can discover a great deal of industrial heritage in the city – whether on foot or by bike – and in the Museum of Industry, you will also find industrial treasures from the past.

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  • The invisible new structure of St Bavo’s Cathedral

    My visiting card says ‘Senior Project Manager’ at Bressers Architecten, but it might as well have been ‘site manager’ or ‘full-time meeting participant’. The construction of the visitor centre inside St Bavo's Cathedral cost us a lot of time and effort — but it was well worthwhile for such a masterpiece.
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Our bloggers

  • Steven Vanderputten

    Steven Vanderputten is a professor of history at Ghent University. He conducts scholarly research into our medieval society and culture, with a predilection for the period from the 9th to the 12th century – a period he is definitely does not wish to call ‘the dark Middle Ages’.

  • Lieve Staes

    Lieve Staes handles the communication of complex spatial projects at the Project Office for Space of the City of Ghent. Her favourite subjects are the Light Plan and water. Professionally, she shares all the details through the website and walks, among other things. But even in her spare time, she can't resist taking family and friends around fairy-tale Ghent at dusk.