Ghent City Museum
The Ghent City Museum (in Dutch "Stadsmuseum Gent", "STAM" in short) is a museum in the Belgian city of Ghent. The museum exposes the city history and opened its doors on 9 October 2010. With respect to the collection that is shown, the history of this museum goes back to 1833, the year in which the "Oudheidkundig Museum van de Bijloke" in Ghent was founded. In 1928 the museum was situated in the "Bijloke" abbey - this led to the name "Bijlokemuseum". With the Bijloke collection as base and the Bijloke abbey and Bijloke monastery as buildings, the  STAM functions as a modern-day heritage forum. Parts from other collections were added to the Bijloke collection. In connection to the historical buildings a new entrance building was constructed, designed by Ghent's city architect Koen Van Nieuwenhuyse. The main circuit of the Ghent City Museum serves as a museal and multimedial introduction to a visit to the city of Ghent. The past of the town is illustrated, but also today's life and the future are discussed. The temporary STAM collections describe the phenomenon of "urbanity" by means of contemporary issues. STAM refers the visitor to the city  itself and to Ghent's cultural heritage. Chronologically structured rooms invite the visitors to explore various thematics. There is also a section dedicated to the "Ghent Altarpiece". The Ghent City Museum was the winner of the 2012 Flemish Museum Prize. Eyecatchers. Eyecatching parts of the museum are the sky picture of Ghent (300 m large) on which the visitors can walk around, and software with which Ghent can be viewed in detail and over the course of four centuries. In the Bijloke abbey that can be accessed through a passerelle in glass, the history of the city is told by  means of three hundred objects. "Views on Ghent" is another multimedial application: a screen shows a city view from the year 1534, floor-plans from 1614 and 1912 and a sky picture from the present. There is also a room for temporary exhibitions.