Dominican Church
Dominicanenkerk
Interesting facts
- A wall painting from 1337 with scenes from the life of Thomas Aquinas is considered the oldest surviving wall painting in the Netherlands.
- The Aquinas painting was found under whitewash in 1861 by Victor de Stuers, and since 2011 a projection briefly restores its faded colours several times a day.
- Its scenes include the infant Thomas eating a book and, at his death, his soul rising to heaven as a star.
- Another band of the painting tells the legend of ten thousand martyred Roman soldiers, shown dressed as crusader knights.
- In the seventeenth century diggers found the grave of William de la Marck, the Boar of the Ardennes, beheaded on the Vrijthof in 1485.
- The bookshop's steel structure consists of two bookcases 30 metres long and 7.5 metres high, with a lift and stairs inside.
- Excavations in 2005–2006 found 11 intact and at least 200 disturbed graves; the oldest, in the middle of the church, may be that of the first prior, Saint Winand.
- The church sits hidden behind houses because in 1265 the chapter of Saint Servatius refused to hand the friars a more prominent site.
- The vault paintings, made in oil by the friar Jan Vasoens, are dated 1618 and 1619 in the painted borders.
Why it is worth it
Rows of black steel bookshelves now rise three storeys high beneath the Gothic vaults of Maastricht's Dominican Church, one of the most striking adaptations of a medieval building in Europe. The church was built for the Dominican friars in the second half of the thirteenth century and consecrated in 1294. It belongs to the Meuse Gothic tradition of the region, built of local limestone, sandstone and blue Namur stone, with a long, tall nave and clean lines suited to an order of preachers.
The friars remained here for more than five centuries. Their community was dissolved in 1796, when Maastricht came under French rule, and the church lost its religious role. What followed was a long run of improvised uses: the building served at times as a parish church, a municipal warehouse, a printing works and a school, then as a concert and exhibition hall, a venue for carnival festivities, and even as a place to store bicycles. Through it all the structure, and traces of its painted decoration, survived. The vaults carry paintings from the early seventeenth century, and medieval wall paintings include scenes from the life of Thomas Aquinas, the great Dominican theologian.
In the mid-2000s the architects Merkx + Girod fitted the nave with a freestanding steel structure that holds the books on several levels, leaving the walls and vaults untouched so the full height of the church can still be read. The bookshop opened in 2007, and in 2008 a British newspaper named it the most beautiful bookshop in the world. It now trades as Boekhandel Dominicanen, an independent shop, and the former choir holds a café.
Maastricht, the southernmost city of the Netherlands, straddles the river Maas close to the Belgian and German borders and is one of the oldest towns in the country. The church stands just off the Vrijthof, the city's main square.
Getting there
The church is in the centre of Maastricht, near the Vrijthof. Maastricht Aachen Airport (MST) is about 9 km to the north-east. Maastricht railway station lies on the east bank of the Maas, around a kilometre away across the river.
On these lists
50.85006, 5.68993per Wikidata