Inhabitat

Ancient Church Renovated into Modern Bookstore

sustainable design, green design, adaptive reuse, renovation, green building, cathedral, Selexyz Domincan Church Maastricht

Whether you’re religious or not, this old Dominican church will certainly bring you the enlightenment you’ve been seeking. After months of renovation this magnificent structure originally constructed in 1294 has opened its doors to the public as a “brand new” bookstore in the heart of Maastricht. A superb example of adaptive re-use, the Selexyz Dominicanen infuses rich and historic architecture with plentiful shelves ripe with information.

sustainable design, green design, adaptive reuse, renovation, green building, cathedral, Selexyz Domincan Church Maastricht

Dating back to the 13th century, the structure was a Dominican church until Maastricht was invaded by Napoleon in 1794 and the group was forced out of the country. Since that point it has been briefly used as a parish, then a warehouse, then an archive, then a giant parking lot for bicycles (not such a terrible idea) and finally made over into a bookstore.

Led by architecture firm Merkx + Girod, the new installations are highlighted by a towering, three-storey black steel book stack stretching up to the stone vaults. The highest shelves are reachable by lift or by a set of stairs within the sleek, well-made stack. The views provided from the top shelf along the nave of the church are nothing short of uplifting.

At the back of the church customers and visitors can sit and admire the beautifully renovated 14th century ceiling frescoes, or chat over a cup of coffee in the café situated in the former choir. In a bit of humor the bookstore also installed a cross-shaped reading table where anyone can sit and flip through the magazines and newspapers kept in the slats of the table. So far the design has won the Lensvelt de Architect Interior Prize, and in 2008 The Guardian called it the
“best bookstore in the world”.

Selexyz Dominicanen belongs to the popular Selexyz chain and maintains a wide selection of books across all subjects, even boasting a sizeable collection of books in English. As more and more churches are being abandoned due to redundancy, maybe this is something for Barnes and Noble to think about…

+ Merkx + Girod

Via Crossroads Magazine

7 Responses to “Ancient Church Renovated into Modern Bookstore”

oviddawen@gmail.com Says:

September 24th, 2009 at 8:03 pm

A great project, well worth covering. This was also the cover story in ArchitectureWeek last week:

http://www.architectureweek.com/2009/0916/index.html

Jeremy Says:

October 1st, 2009 at 10:09 am

magnificent. I’d worship there.

Uffington Says:

October 5th, 2009 at 7:13 am

I worship here: http://www.architectureweek.com/2006/0920/culture_1-1.html – A 15th Century Church in Bristol (UK) that has been converted into an indoor climbing centre.

likeyougiveadamn Says:

October 7th, 2009 at 9:11 am

Really beautiful pictures. It’s always great to see architechture that is sensitive to the original build. I blogged your post here! http://blog.likeyougiveadamn.com/design/ancient-church-modern-bookstore/

Camerin Says:

October 9th, 2009 at 2:59 pm

This is truly a magnificent place. I went there frequently while studying in Maastricht. The city also has a very high end hotel that utilizes an ancient church.

coutureglassdotcom Says:

October 16th, 2009 at 10:44 am

WOW! What a breathtaking space!

kimmi.bean Says:

October 22nd, 2009 at 8:09 pm

i think that in certain instances reusing old buildings for new purposes can be good but i dont think that applies here.
Its clearly a magnificent gothic style cathedral. Its beautiful as is and placing a ton of books in the middle of a cathedral nave is really not a way to worship the architecture at all. any modernisation of a building from a former era should compliment the building in such a way that the authenticity and era in which it was created is shown and experienced.
Yeah, certain views of the books can look great but the way in which they have designed the space entirely takes away from the originality of the cathedral itself.
They should compliment eachother, exaggerate the beauty of one another. Instead here you see the new design entirely over powering the original to a point where it is lost – what a pity.
KB

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