These museums keep and research collections of old art inside listed historical buildings, making these collections physically and intellectually accessible to the community in the broadest sense of the word: the city’s population, visitors from home and abroad, art and museum lovers.

These museums are scientific and scholarly institutions, operating in the greatest respect for the collections and their historical importance in art, and in a way that contributes to the international allure of the city of Antwerp. They contribute to knowledge about and appreciation of old art, offer room and occasion for aesthetic pleasure and visual education as vital elements for a contemporary experience of culture.

Vision

The Rubens House is a museum unlike any other. First and foremost it is a historical house, a place with history – a lieu de mémoire. It embodies the history and the cultural identity of the city and is one of the most important tools in marketing the city of Antwerp.

Today, the Rubens House is the place where you get closest to the world of the greatest baroque artist north of the Alps. The museum ‘uses’ the former function of the monument in which it is housed and the unique atmosphere it is steeped in. It makes use of the ‘esprit’, the spirit which very much pervades the house, to achieve one of its principal aims: to inform, inspire and excite people about their past. All of which combines to makes a visit to the Rubens House an emotional experience, enhancing accessibility to non-traditional museum visitors in the process.

In addition to these immaterial values, the Rubens House also acts as cultural attraction pole, generating considerable cultural, social and economic added value for Antwerp. Located on the Wapper, the house comes with an extraordinarily powerful location.

Although the Rubens House has been one of the best visited museums in Flanders for many years, it is imperative that we consolidate this position by maintaining and wherever possible improving the collection, the quality of the building, the technical infrastructure in place, the way in which the collection is presented and public communication.