ghent, city of all times
No single period or power left its stamp on Ghent. Ghent is a city of all times, a university city, a seaport, a historical city and a city of culture.
STAM is an instrument for deciphering the city layer by layer and making it legible. STAM reveals the fabric of the old city by dissecting the accumulated years of history. It also holds up to view the chalk lines of future developments.
STAM’s 'story of ghent'
Entitled 'The Story of Ghent’, the permanent circuit follows a clear chronological trail leading through six rooms of the museum, each of which encapsulates a period in the city’s history. More than 300 awesome collection pieces illustrate this story, while multimedia applications provide more in-depth information.
There are also two themed ‘bypaths’ in the form of large-format photographs by Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer which act as a bridge to the modern-day city, there are listening benches which tell us what all sorts of famous people think about Ghent, and there is an ever-changing gallery of the future.
the building speaks
The rooms in the former Bijloke Abbey now serve as museum galleries. They are linked by the ambulatory, which acts as a ‘timeline’.
What makes the building so special is that the successive building phases enable us to read the city’s rich history. For example, the dormitory and the refectory illustrate Ghent’s growth into a medieval metropolis, while the ‘1715’ baroque room evokes the seventeenth and eighteenth-century city.
