Design Museum Gent reopened on 3 October 2026 after a four-year, €20m renovation and expansion. London's Carmody Groarke and Ghent's ATAMA added a five-storey timber wing that ties the museum's three old buildings into one route, and faced it in more than 82,000 bricks made from the city's own waste. RE-ST restored the historic rooms.
Key takeaways
- A wing that finishes a puzzle. The new building fills a neglected passage and an empty plot, so the 18th-century courtyard becomes a garden at the centre of the museum.
- Bricks from the city's rubbish. The Gent Waste Brick is lime-cured, not fired, and mixes crushed concrete, glass, windscreens and porcelain from Ghent's waste.
- Timber structure. Wallpaper describes it as the tallest public timber-structured building in Belgium.
- Designed with neighbours. A panel of 40 Ghent residents, DE40, helped answer the brief's question: "Is this a museum for me?"
- Free to walk into. The ground-floor Stadskamer, or "city room", is open without a ticket.
What happened: Design Museum Gent reopens
Founded in 1903 as a "museum of models" for local craftspeople, Design Museum Gent is Belgium's largest design museum. Before the renovation it lived in three buildings with three personalities: the Leten House, with a 16th-century core; Hotel de Coninck, an 18th-century rococo mansion around a courtyard; and a white wing added in 1992.
Carmody Groarke and ATAMA (then called TRANS architectuur | stedenbouw) won the international competition for the expansion in November 2019, ArchDaily reports. The museum closed for four years, and on 3 October 2026 the museum opened its doors again with three new exhibitions.
The Design Museum Gent new wing
The smartest move here is where the building goes. The old museum had a messy back: a neglected southern passage and an empty plot in the middle of the block, on Drabstraat. The new wing takes both. That frees the courtyard of Hotel de Coninck to become a garden, the place you orient yourself from, with sightlines running through the building.
Inside, the wing is a single route through six zones, as described by designboom:
| Zone | What it is |
|---|---|
| Stadskamer | A free "city room" with the reception and shop |
| Forum | Lectures and talks |
| Atelier | Workshops |
| Vitrine | Temporary exhibitions |
| Loft | A fourth-floor event space with a big window onto the city |
| Basement | Art handling |
The materials are timber and pale brick. The facade's scale and rhythm take their cue from Ghent's old guild and merchant houses, and the brick's light tone matches the houses on Drabstraat.
Gent Waste Brick: the facade made from the city
The brick is the story everyone will retell, and it deserves it. Carmody Groarke developed it with BC Materials, Wallpaper reports. It is made from Ghent's municipal waste (crushed concrete from city buildings, waste glass, car windscreens, windows and porcelain) and hardened with lime instead of fired in a kiln. Wallpaper puts its embodied carbon at a third of a standard Belgian clay brick.
More than 82,000 were made at Het Arsenaal in Ghent, where the public could watch production live. Even the size is borrowed: each brick matches those taken from the back facade of Hotel de Coninck. "The size of the brick is very, very particular," the architects told designboom.
Why it matters
Plenty of museum extensions add galleries. This one adds a public room. The brief's guiding question, "Is this a museum for me?", is aimed at people who don't usually walk into museums, and the answer is architectural: a free ground floor, a garden in the middle and a wing anyone can wander through. Andy Groarke, co-founder of Carmody Groarke, told Wallpaper the museum should be a place "where you're not forced to perform or consume and you can just be."
The other lesson is about material. Most "sustainable" buildings talk about energy. This one makes its facade out of the city it stands in, and shows people how. The Art Newspaper found the same idea down to the toilets: ten of them, each by a different designer, lined in seaweed, recycled plastic or volcanic-ash tiles.
It joins a strong year for museum extensions in Europe, from the Fondation Beyeler expansion by Peter Zumthor to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum extension.
From the studio
What I take from Ghent is that reuse doesn't have to mean keeping old things exactly as they were. Here the old buildings stay, and the new wing literally rebuilds the city's leftovers into a wall. That is a more useful model for students than a pristine glass box beside a listed mansion.
What's next
- Now: Models from the Past for the Future, about 500 objects from the 24,000-piece collection.
- Until 10 January 2027: Connect, free and for all ages.
- Until 11 April 2027: Public Matter(s): Design and Democracy and CO-LAB, in eight period rooms of Hotel de Coninck.
More museum stories are in the Journal's Museums tag and its News section.
FAQ
When did Design Museum Gent reopen?
Design Museum Gent reopened on 3 October 2026, after a four-year renovation and expansion that cost about €20m.
Who designed the Design Museum Gent new wing?
The Design Museum Gent new wing was designed by Carmody Groarke of London with ATAMA of Ghent, who won the competition in November 2019. RE-ST restored the historic buildings.
What is Gent Waste Brick?
Gent Waste Brick is a lime-cured brick made from Ghent's municipal waste, including crushed concrete, glass and porcelain. More than 82,000 of them face the Design Museum Gent new wing.
Sources
- Design Museum GentDesign Museum Gent
- Design Museum Gent Reopens with New Wing by Carmody Groarke and ATAMAArchDaily
- design museum gent reopens with new wing by carmody groarke and ATAMAdesignboom
- From an indoor forest to a toilet made with seaweed: Design Museum Gent reopens after €20m eco-focused expansionThe Art Newspaper
- Tour the revamped Ghent Design Museum by Carmody GroarkeWallpaper*
