In Flanders Fields Museum

Ypres, Belgium

The In Flanders' Fields Museum is a museum in Ypres Belgium, dedicated to the study of the First World War. It occupies the second floor of the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle) on the market square in the city centre. The building was largely destroyed by artillery during the war, but was afterwards reconstructed. In 1998 the original Ypres Salient Memorial Museum was refurbished and renamed In Flanders Fields Museum after the famous poem by Canadian John McCrae. Following a period of closure, the museum reopened on 11 June 2012. The curator, Piet Chielens, is a World War I historian. The museum does not set out to glorify war, but to suggest its futility, particularly as seen in the West Flanders front region in World War I.