Museum puts Belgium’s Antwerp on cultural map

Built on the docks of a once-derelict neighborhood, the MAS museum hosts the treasures that tall ships brought in from around the globe for centuries. And the audacious, sandstone-and-glass tower has already turned into a 65-meter tall exclamation mark that shows Antwerp has lost none of its swagger.
It opens on Friday with a three-day festival of music and fireworks for the 500,000 ‘sinjoren,’ as the locals are known, who have witnessed its birth throes for the past decade.