ArtDependence | Bruges St. Johns Hospital enters race for Top European Museum Honor

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Bruges St. Johns Hospital enters race for Top European Museum Honor

The European Museum Forum announced the EMYA2026 nominees. Thirty-five museums are nominated by the EMYA Jury to take part in this year's edition.

Bruges St. Johns Hospital is one of Europe's oldest preserved hospital buildings with masterpieces by the Flemish primitive Hans Memling and surprising contemporary artworks by artists such as Berlinde De Bruyckere and Patricia Piccinini.

The EMYA2026 winners will be announced on Saturday, 13 June at the EMYA2026 Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony that will take place in Bilbao from 10 to 14 June 2026. Organised by the European Museum Forum and hosted by Euskararen Etxea and its Basque Language Interpretation Centre —the 2025 winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize— this event will bring together the EMYA community: past candidates and winners, partners, friends, and this year’s nominee museums.

The nominated museums:

Museum St John’s Hospital	Bruges, Belgium
Den Gamble By. National Open-Air Museum of Urban History and Culture	Aarhus, Denmark
Kaj Munk Museum, part of the Ringkobing Fjord Museums	Ulfborg, Denmark
Children’s Museum Miiamilla, branch of Tallinn City Museum	Tallinn, Estonia
Tartu City Museum	Tartu, Estonia
Lahti Museum of Visual Arts Malva	Lahti, Finland
Museum of Play	Espoo, Finland
Pile Dwellings Unteruhldingen	Uhldingen-Mühlhofen, Germany
Samurai Museum Berlin	Berlin, Germany
State Archaeological Collection	Munich, Germany
Sensoria – The House of Fragrances and Flavours Holzminden	Holzminden, Germany
AlpenStadtMuseum Sonthofen	Sonthofen, Germany
Obersalzberg Documentation Center	Berchtesgaden, Germany
Research Center – Tsitsanis Museum	Trikala, Greece
Museum of Ethnography in Budapest	Budapest, Hungary
Latvian National Museum of Literature and Music	Riga, Latvia
National Museum of Resistance and Human Rights	Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
Museum of Engineering and Technology in Krakow	Krakow, Poland
MUDE – Design Museum	Lisbon, Portugal
Lisbon Museum – Pimenta Palace	Lisbon, Portugal
Museum of Madness Institute	Trate, Slovenia
Galactica	Arcos de las Salinas, Spain
La Unión Mining Museum	La Unión, Spain
Villena Museum MUVI	Villena, Spain
ArkDes	Stockholm, Sweden
MuMAPS. Museum of Art Mechanics and Heritage	Sainte-Croix, Switzerland
Ski Museum – Le Boéchet	Les Bois, Switzerland
La Muette – Literary Spaces	Pully, Switzerland
Museum of the Rural Civilization of Mendrisiotto	Stabio, Switzerland
CERN Science Gateway	Meyrin, Switzerland
Museum Henry Dunant	Heiden, Switzerland
Kunsthaus Baselland	Basel, Switzerland
Zeyrek Çinili Hamam Museum	Istanbul, Türkiye
Seddülbahir Fortress	Çanakkale, Türkiye
Young V&A

Main Image: Bruges St. Johns Hospital