Block party ... the Museum aan de Stroom features a striking design and a Michelin-starred restaurant.Credit: Getty Images
Antwerp's MAS museum is set to transform the city's docks, writes Laura Barnett.
From the air, the Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp looks like a stack of red Lego bricks. Large, expensive Lego bricks, dropped by some tired giant child and stuck together with what could conceivably be great swathes of sticky tape.
The city's newest museum, designed by Dutch architects Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk, opened in May and looks more solid but no less fanciful from the ground.
The sticky tape is, in fact, wide panels of undulating glass separating 10 giant stone containers, stacked one on top of the other and clad in violent red Indian sandstone.
It is an idiosyncratic design that contrasts with the city's predominant architectural styles: the traditional Flemish ziggurat roofs of the pretty historic centre and the port's brutalist industrial sprawl. But this is exactly the point: Museum aan de Stroom (which is known as MAS and translates as museum by the river) is intended to be a bridge between city centre and port.
This is meant both literally and metaphorically: the museum is in a dockside area called Het Eilandje (the little island) sitting between the two, and it contains more than 470,000 exhibits relating to the history of Antwerp's port and its people.
It's not just the exhibitions and architecture that will draw the crowds. On MAS's top floor is 't Zilte (tzilte.be), a double Michelin-starred restaurant, which has just moved from Mol, a town nearby. Here, chef Viki Geunes serves creative haute cuisine, with a six-week waiting list for a table. The museum's exhibitions are laid out thematically, floor by floor.
The Visible Storage section on the second floor is particularly absorbing. Here, you get a rare chance to see the thousands of objects that would be hidden away in storage in other museums. I opened drawers at random to find armoured breastplates lying alongside a set of intricately carved ivory Madonnas.
The first temporary exhibition, Masterpieces in the MAS, runs until December 30 and features artworks produced in or near Antwerp over the past four centuries - from paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan van Eyck to contemporary pieces by Flemish artists such as Jan Fabre, who makes sculptures out of insect carapaces.
Those who can't afford the Michelin-starred food should at least visit the ninth-floor terrace, with amazing views across the city, the port and the river Scheldt. It's free to get up here (entry to the exhibitions costs up to €10 [$13]), though you're likely to share it with restaurant diners sipping pricey aperitifs. There's a more affordable cafe, Storm, on the ground floor.
MAS is a clear indicator that Het Eilandje has finally completed its transition from neglected dockside to fashionable district. This regeneration has been masterminded by the city council and propelled by its decision 10 years ago to build the museum here in an area dubbed "Siberia" by locals because it takes a good half-hour to walk from the centre.
The docks were constructed for Napoleon in 1811, as a base for his planned naval invasion of London but by the middle of the last century had fallen into disrepair. The whole area - which includes Antwerp's two oldest docks, Bonaparte and Willem, and a grid of streets between the red light district and the main harbour - has undergone massive reconstruction and is now a lovely place for a stroll.
Most tourists come to Antwerp to stock up on chocolate, beer or diamonds (the city is one of the biggest diamond markets in the world) or to test its reputation as Belgium's hub for fashion and design. But Het Eilandje is another good reason to make the trip. Yachts bob prettily in Willemdok; there's a line of trendy bars and restaurants opposite MAS; and a few blocks away is the Felix Pakhuis (Godefriduskaai 30, felixpakhuis.nu), a meticulously restored warehouse that houses the city's national archive, and another artfully minimalist fusion restaurant.
The fashion designer Dries Van Noten has just moved his atelier to another warehouse conversion next door and around the corner is Marcel (Van Schoonbekeplein 13, restaurantmarcel.be), an excellent bistro housed in a former American presbyterian church.
So far, so gentrified - but much of Het Eilandje feels like it's holding its breath. The upper floors of many of the apartment buildings are plastered with advertisements for luxury loft conversions, but most still appear to be empty.
However, with the opening of MAS and several major projects planned - including the remodelling of several of the ugly high-rises and streets, and a new Zaha Hadid-designed port authority headquarters at the mouth of the harbour - the area is sure to lose its forgotten, industrial feel soon.
The Royal Ballet of Flanders moved recently into a new corrugated-iron headquarters on the corner of Kattendijkdok and Westkaai, next to a dilapidated, semi-roofless building from which millions of migrants once left for the US aboard Red Star Line ships. A museum dedicated to the Red Star Line will open here next year.
And a 20-minute walk from MAS there is another renowned restaurant, Het Pomphuis (Siberiastraat z/n, hetpomphuis.be), set in a former dry-dock pumping station. The three-storey building is spectacular: in the basement stand the three huge pumps that could once empty the neighbouring dry dock in two hours; while upstairs, under the soaring glass roof, you can enjoy a cocktail and fantastic fish dishes.
Food, art and culture can all be found in Het Eilandje but there's nowhere in the area to stay yet, apart from a Holiday Inn Express on Italielei. There are dozens of boutique hotels and B&Bs in the city centre, however, such as Boulevard Leopold (boulevard-leopold.be).
The other thing the area lacks is decent shopping. However, Antwerp is renowned for its fashion and design, so this is bound to change. It's worth taking your time to stroll around Het Eilandje and commit to memory a place that, within five years, is likely to have been completely transformed. As an area in transition, it is fascinating.
Emirates flies to the nearest airports — Amsterdam and Dusseldorf — for about $1890 low-season return from Sydney and Melbourne including tax. This involves flying to Dubai (14hr), then to either city (about 7hr), and lets you fly into one European city and back from another.
- Guardian News & Media
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