Skip to main content

Construction of Dry Docks Park and future Maritime Museum starts

The city of Antwerp is to have a new park and a new museum. On Dry Docks Island, located on the Eilandje on the bend of the River Scheldt, work will start in 2016 on the construction of the Dry Docks Park. As well as the park, the city of Antwerp also plans to create a Maritime Museum there.

Metropolitan park with natural tidal shoreline

In the Scheldt Quays Master Plan, Dry Docks Island, a 15-hectare area in the north of Antwerp, has been earmarked as a metropolitan park and place for outdoor recreation. Thanks to its unique location on the outside bend of the River Scheldt, the project area constitutes a pivotal point between city and port, where the two worlds converge. The new park will have a natural tidal shoreline along the Scheldt, a park zone and space for temporary events.
 

Maritime Museum

A Maritime Museum will also be built in the new Dry Docks Park. A feasibility study has identified the existing building cluster of the Algemene Werkhuizen Noord on the dry docks site as the most suitable location for the development of such a museum in Antwerp. The buildings are ideal for the creation of a hands-on museum where a powerful story about the maritime history of the city of Antwerp can be conveyed. In addition to the city’s collection of vessels and port equipment, the new museum will also house the Doel Cog, an excavated medieval cargo ship. The arrival of the new museum is the next step in the creation of the cultural maritime axis on the Eilandje, alongside the MAS and the Red Star Line Museum.
 

A hands-on museum bringing together various collections

The future Maritime Museum will be a hands-on museum, focusing not just on exhibiting the maritime heritage but on the experience of active ship repair work and caring for the maritime heritage. A major crowd-puller will be the restoration of the Doel Cog, which will take place in the museum. The city’s collection of port equipment and vessels will also be on display there.
If the Cog Project’s current schedule is maintained, the Maritime Museum should be finished by the end of 2022, in time to open in 2023 for the start of the Cog’s reconstruction.