Vesalius Museum Living care and science

12—13 DEC 2026

Opening Weekend Leuven

Vesalius Museum - an initiative of KU Leuven and UZ Leuven - is opening in the heart of the city: a place where healthcare comes to life and science is at your fingertips.

Why does your heart beat? How does a wound heal? What makes us human? And who cares for you?

Stay informed

At Vesalius Museum, you’re more than just a visitor. Look through the eyes of a human being, researcher and care provider. This is where the surgeon of 500 years ago speaks to the robot surgeon of today. Where you ask the same questions as the experts. In this museum, healthcare has a human face, and science doesn’t always wear a white coat.

exhibition Care and science in every phase of life

The museum will open with a permanent exhibition about the phases of life, from pregnancy and birth to illness, recovery and death.

The focus is on people who give or receive care. We don’t shy away from difficult topics. Vesalius Museum shows life as it is, in all its vulnerability.

art and heritage A collection on healthcare and science

KU Leuven and UZ Leuven’s scientific collection, called the Histaruz collection, shows how scientists and patients have viewed health through the centuries. Contemporary artists engage with the collection to put care and science in a new context.

experience Clarifying complex matters

Vesalius Museum makes it easier to understand complex medical and scientific insights. Experience for yourself what a baby hears in the womb and what happens to you when you die.

Or, just like Vesalius, get to work at the digital dissection table and dissect the human body down to the smallest detail.

broad programme Knowledge knows no end

In the auditorium and multimedia studios, healthcare professionals, students and visitors can explore current topics and innovations in healthcare.

The museum also organises a programme of lectures, workshops and cultural events.

Plan your visit

Location Historic building, a new future

Vesalius Museum is housed in the historic buildings of the Anatomical Theatre and the Pathology Institute: two places where dissections and medical research took place in the past.

You can find us at the Hertogensite in the centre of Leuven, between the Oude Markt and the Kruidtuin.

Anatomical Theatre and Dissection Room

This 19th century building, also known as the Vesalius Institute, will soon be turned into the new welcome area. It is also the final stop on your museum visit.

Anatomical Theatre and Dissection Room

Pathology Institute

Laboratories for gynaecology and obstetrics research and experimental pathology were housed in this early 20th century building. They will be turned into exhibition rooms and the venue for the permanent exhibition.

Pathology Institute

Medical Auditorium

This wooden lecture theatre dating from 1933 was the place where generations of medical students attended lessons. After thorough renovation, it will be repurposed for a range of museum activities.

Medical Auditorium

Biography Who was Andreas Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) studied the human body in a radically new way. Unlike his contemporaries, who based their research on ancient texts, he did his own research. He dissected bodies himself and described carefully what he saw.

Leuven played a key role in Vesalius’ development. He went there to study when he was fifteen and came back later as a medical student. Then he was allowed to dissect the bodies of executed criminals himself.

That experience convinced Vesalius that knowledge comes from observing, questioning and examining. It laid the foundations for his masterpiece, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543). This anatomy textbook is considered to be the beginning of modern anatomy and medicine.