Could this be Europe’s most underrated city?
This easy-to-reach option has fine art, architectural grandeur and a love of good food — but remains unaccountably ignored by tourists.
On my first visit to Antwerp 11 years ago, I was bowled over. Even arriving at the station – one of the loftiest temples to rail travel I have seen – the step up from the scruffy exit from the Eurostar terminal at Brussels Midi station was an eye-opening moment. The difference persists today. In the Belgian capital, you are confronted with depressing, claustrophobic passageways. At Antwerp, under a soaring roof framed by a neoclassical facade, the platforms are lined with delicatessens and cool cafes.
That impression of energy, grandeur and a love of good food (and beer) never dims as you explore a city that remains unaccountably ignored by tourists. There is a palpable, vibrant confidence to the place where the economic engine is driven and fuelled by fashion, diamonds and petrochemicals, and underpinned by its status as the second largest port in Europe.
The sea trade was especially critical in Antwerp’s glory days. Between about 1500 and 1650, this was one of the most powerful and influential trading centres in the world. It dominated the lucrative European pepper, silver and textiles markets, and prospered spectacularly as a result. Much of the vast wealth generated was poured into beautifying the city, particularly the splendid Grote Markt square, where the grand city hall was rebuilt in the 1560s, and merchants vied for prestige by building ever higher guild houses with spectacular gables and facades made more of windows than walls.
Meanwhile, a thriving community of painters grew up to serve the demand for art to embellish the merchants’ mansions, the great cathedral and churches. Among the many greats born, trained or who flourished here were Bruegel, Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals and Teniers.
My one disappointment from that first visit was that the city’s premier museum, The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, or KMSKA, had just closed for restoration. This is the greatest collection of art from that golden age of Flemish 16th and 17th-century painting but, don’t worry, I was told, it will be reopen in 2017. In fact, the reveal just took place on September 24, when KMSKA opened its doors to the public after 11 years of construction and refurbishment. The historic core of the building, which is a classic, pedimented temple to the arts, dates to 1890, but the €100m renovations have created a huge new exhibition space by enclosing the internal courtyards and creating three levels of galleries. These new all-white rooms host the museum’s interesting but relatively modest collection of modern painting.
Its real strength, however, is its astonishing holdings of great Flemish art housed in its original and beautifully restored galleries. Dating mostly from 1500-1700, there are dozens of masterpieces of the highest quality fine works by Breughel, Jordaens and Gossaert.
There are some things to question about the renovation. In my view, arranging pictures by theme, rather than chronologically, risks confusing rather than enlightening visitors. In fact, I wonder how long this particular hang will endure. But there is plenty of fun and invention, too.
While KMSKA will now reclaim its status as Antwerp’s art magnet, the city’s other great cultural sights are still going strong. The Rubens House, which the artist bought in 1610 on his return from Rome and then converted into a Renaissance palace, is a place of pilgrimage for his fans. And there are two fabulous art museums housed in the former residences of the city’s greatest collectors. The Rockox House was the home of Nicolaas Rockox, one of Rubens’ friends and patrons and burgomaster of Antwerp in the early 17th century. Its collection is twinned with a museum devoted to the Golden Age painter Frans Snijders. And the Mayer van den Bergh Museum has a stunning collection of art from the northern Renaissance including paintings by Brueghel and Gossaert.
Meanwhile, the Museum Plantin-Moretus is a remarkable survival from the mid 16th-century when it was one of the great printing houses of Europe. It has an outstanding collection of books, prints, maps, presses and paintings. While Antwerp’s heyday as a crucible of artistic creativity may be long gone, as a destination for art lovers, the reopening of KMSKA has reinstated it as one of the best.
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In the know
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp is open daily 10am-5pm (to 10pm on Thursday; 6pm at weekends). Admission €20 ($31). Eurostar offers services from London to Antwerp; change at Brussels Midi.
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