Convent Van Maerlant
Convent Van Maerlant | |
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General information | |
Architectural style | Neo-Gothic |
Location | City of Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium |
Coordinates | 50°50′28″N 4°22′41″E / 50.84119°N 4.37815°E |
Current tenants | European Commission |
The Convent Van Maerlant (French: Couvent Van Maerlant; Dutch: Van Maerlantklooster) is a former convent which consists of a church and the Chapel of the Resurrection on the Rue Van Maerlant/Van Maerlantstraat in Brussels, Belgium. It is named after Jacob van Maerlant, a famous medieval Flemish poet.
The original chapel was built in 1435 in the authority of a
History
First church
The
The entire neighbourhood was acquired by the State in 1907 as part of a project to connect the North and South railway termini. The convent lay on the site of the planned Rue Courbe (now the Rue Ravenstein/Ravensteinstraat) which was designed by Henri Maquet to link the Royal Palace of Brussels with the centre. The convent buildings were bought by the city and served as a gym for the local primary school. Later, the church became a depot Brussels' electric and road works department and the chapel housed a local garage owner. In 1955, they were all demolished in order to build the Ravenstein Gallery.[3]
New building
When the sisters left, they moved to the Maalbeek valley, and missing their old convent, copied the church and chapel (known as the Salazar from the Spanish noble family who built the adjoining mansion that would become the main convent building) in an identical style, though lacking some features due to monetary constraints. However, they were unable to manage them and ultimately left in 1974. The building deteriorated while developers argued, with one wishing to build seven nine-story office blocks on its site.[3] Such development was blocked as the site was reserved for the Council of the European Union, which had to put the area over to housing. Public authorities pushed for its restoration and the developers eventually agreed. In 1996, it was fully renovated with a central atrium over the cloister, but the original features all still present. It is now occupied by the European Commission.[3] The side chapel was also restored with sponsorship and was re-inaugurated as the Chapel of the Resurrection or the Chapel for Europe, on 25 September 2001.[3][4]
Architecture
The church is a 19th-century red brick neo-Gothic construction, though the rebuilt version of the early 1900s lacks the tower, side isles, stone decorations, rose window and pinnacles of the original.[3]
The chapel, known today as Chapel of the Resurrection, is a duplicate of the 15th- and 18th-century original and was completely renovated in the 1990s, losing almost all its original internal features. It is neoclassical, with Doric columns, pediment and friezes. The stained glass windows were painted by Thomas Reinhold of Vienna. They were produced by the factory of the Schlierbach convent in Upper Austria and financed by nine Austrian regions to cover five biblical themes.[3]
Area and usage
The church serves as the central library of the
It is located in areas known as the European Quarter and the Leopold Quarter. The neighbouring building to the south, built in the late 1980s and also housing Commission offices, is of unusually high quality, out of a desire to help it fit in with its neighbouring Gothic church. Its height was also restricted to that of the convent.[3]
Further to the south is
See also
- Berlaymont building
- Charlemagne building
- Breydel building
- Madou Plaza Tower
- Brussels and the European Union
- Institutional seats of the European Union
- European Library
External links
- Media related to Convent Van Maerlant at Wikimedia Commons
References
- ^ The foundress' autographed biography in the author's possession, also private documentation from the remaining sisterhood idem.
- Papal Bull 5.1.1435 in the Ecclesiastical fonds of the AnderlechtState Archives
- ^ ISBN 978-2-9600414-2-2.
- ^ A Brief History from Resurrection.be Retrieved 28 May 2013
- ^ List and maps of Commission buildings in Brussels Archived 26 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Office for Infrastructure and Logistics – Brussels