Convent Van Maerlant

Geschiedenis

The Convent Van Maerlant is a former convent which consists of a church and a Chapel (Chapelle de la Résurrection) on Rue Van Maerlantstraat in Brussels (Belgium).In 1905, a compulsory purchase order for land for the Central railway station was made on the Rue des Sols, and this included the Brussels convent of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, the chief Eucharistic Order started in 1844 by the daughter of the Chairman and founder of the Société Générale. The original chapel was built in 1435 in the authority of a Papal Bull, and was renovated in the 1780s: the convent itself was converted from a Ducal town house in the early 1850s. As a result, a very similar building was needed, and built, in the early 1900s: the chapel was virtually identical to the original, which survived for another 45 years, only finally being demolished in 1955. Falling vocations meant the convent was closed in the early 1980s and after standing derelict for nearly 20 years, the convent was acquired to become the central library of the European Commission. This is the only pre-Second World War building to be left standing in the area after the entry of European institutions.ArchitectureThe 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.The chapel, known today as Chapelle de la Résurrection, 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 neo-classical, with Doric columns, pediment and friezes. The stain 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.