De Grote Post

De Grote Post is Ostend’s finest modernist building and one of the best post-war buildings in Belgium. The architect Gaston Eysselinck designed it as the city’s main post office just after the Second World War; construction started in 1947 and the building was completed in 1953, the year Eysselinck died, and officially opened in 1954. It was the only government building he ever designed, and not an easy one: the royal monuments commission found the design far too industrial, and a row over the copper sculpture on the façade got the architect banned from his own building site. Jozef Cantré’s winged group, a tribute to the post, telegraph and telephone, was finally mounted in 1963.

The post office closed its counters in 1999. The city bought the building in 2005, and after a conversion by B-architecten it reopened in 2012 as a culture centre with two theatre halls, an amphitheatre and a dozen smaller rooms for theatre, dance, music, comedy and circus. The former counter hall, with its original stone counters and curved ceiling, now serves as the box office.

You do not need a ticket to see it. The CultuurCafé on the ground floor is open every day from 08:30, which makes it easy to step inside for a coffee and a look at the interior. On some Sundays between November 2026 and June 2027 there are public backstage tours, and groups can book a guided tour of about an hour.