Letterenhuis, Literary archive and museum in Antwerp, Belgium

Letterenhuis occupies a protected complex on Minderbroedersstraat in central Antwerp, its cream facade set on a grey stone base with tall windows behind black metal grilles and an ornate stone doorway under a wrought-iron balcony. Behind it lie five kilometres of paper archives, 150,000 photographs and 65,000 posters documenting Flemish literature from the late 18th century onward.

The city of Antwerp bought Hendrik Conscience's literary archive in 1899, and a 1912 centenary exhibition in Huis De Beukelaer led to plans for a permanent museum. The Museum van de Vlaamsche Letterkunde opened there in 1933. V-bombs destroyed much of the building in the winter of 1944, but the archive had been secured at the start of the war. Renamed AMVC in 1945, it moved into a complex by city architect André Fivez, inaugurated in 1959.

The institution holds personal papers and manuscripts from writers who shaped Flemish literature. Walking through the displays shows how these authors lived and worked in their time.

The reading room is open by appointment, with separate study places for reading or studying. The public area hosts themed exhibitions, poetry readings and book presentations, and visitors can also organise their own events there. Guided tours and workshops are offered for secondary pupils, higher-education students and adult NT2 learners.

Four manuscripts in the collection are listed as Flemish Masterpieces, including Willem Elsschot's Kaas and two by Paul van Ostaijen: De feesten van angst en pijn and Bezette stad. The fourth is Cyriel Buysse's play Het gezin Van Paemel. The archive also keeps objects such as typewriters, theatre props and costumes.