Klooster Franciscanessen

English translation

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Description

Introduction.

Main building and chapel, forming part of a CONVENT BUILDING that constitutes the remainder of a complex originally consisting of a mother house, boarding school and day schools. The site fronts onto the Hoge Ham, with the Bolkensteeg forming the right boundary and the Schoolstraat on the left. Founded in 1801 by the Franciscan sisters in an existing mansion. Gradually over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries extensions took place, the mansion eventually disappearing. Until 1985 almost three-quarters of the site was built over with convent and school buildings.

As a result of the loss of educational activities and the declining number of sisters, a major reorganisation was decided upon in the nineteen-eighties.

The convent wing from 1898 on the Hoge Ham, built in a sober almost Neo-Gothic style with Neo-Renaissance elements, together with the chapel from that same year has been preserved. These components are protected. Between them new construction in courtyard form has been placed with a connection to the old chapel. This new construction is not protected.

The chapel was built to the design of architect C.F. van Genk and was a gift from the Maassen family, on the occasion of the silver jubilee of Vicares Mère Antonina Maassen. This St. Joseph chapel was consecrated in 1899.

Description.

Two-storey brick convent building on a U-shaped plan beneath a continuous hipped roof. The roof is covered with newly improved Dutch tiles.

The façades have a plastered plinth and speckled courses at the height of the lower sills, alternating sills and upper sills of the windows. At the top of the façade a moulded cornice, above it diamond-shaped stones in the masonry. The gutter is provided with closely spaced small rosettes. All original windows have been replaced by new arched six-pane windows. The relieving arches above are segmental arches with plastered voussoir and keystone.

The front façade has a central risalit with a top gable, richly decorated with natural stone elements. On the corners of the upper storey are small columns. Over the ground floor and upper storey a tall niche has been made. A statue of Francis stands in a niche in the top gable. The top gable itself is flanked by volutes and crowned by a broken curved tympanum.

In a shallow porch is the french window with arched fanlight. Above it in a recessed field a composite window beneath rounded arches. In the arch fields natural stone shell and fan motifs have been carved. The whole beneath a basket arch is terminated by a plastered cornice. In the right side façade several doors have been inserted, these and a number of windows on the ground floor and upper storey at the location of a stairwell, are filled with figurative stained glass, reused from the old convent buildings.

Against the rear façade a single-storey gallery beneath a shed roof has been placed, this forms part of the new extensions. Above it the plastered façade of the old building with six-pane windows with rounded corners is visible. These windows are all set in a moulded frame. Almost at the ends of the original rear façade block-shaped outbuildings beneath hipped roofs have been placed. At the top of the façade a moulded edge which gives the impression of a cornice.

In the interior much has been modernised with the layout of the ground floor broadly maintained. The vestibule and hall lead onto a corridor, parallel to the road. On the street side are several (reception/waiting) rooms. The corridor running behind it still has several original french windows.

Strikingly many elements (such as doors, door handles, stained glass panels etc.) from the old convent and boarding school buildings have been reused. For instance, in the current chapter room the doors from the recreation hall of the old buildings have been reused. Four of these have been used to make a partition wall across the full width of the hall. The french windows and rounded arch fanlights have a geometric glazing bar division.

Behind the new convent construction a new connection has been made to the chapel via a corridor and silence centre. Between them a symmetrically laid out garden.

The three-aisled chapel is executed in brick and has a cruciform plan beneath a composite gabled roof and shed roof. The transept arms are square-ended and have top gables. The crossing is crowned by an octagonal roof turret. The nave comprises seven bays beneath a gabled roof, flanked by aisles beneath shed roofs. The choir is one bay deep, the five-sided closed apse has a continuous hipped roof. All roofs are covered with slate.

The façades are articulated by pilaster strips with the nave having a dentil course at the top. On the ground floor the pilaster strips terminate in buttresses. The top gables are provided with a stepped band. The front façade of the church has been given a new infill after it came into view as a result of demolition of old parts of the convent. In the masonry the suggestion of a rose window and rounded arch windows, comparable with the articulation of the façades of the transepts, has been created.

Triple windows in the aisles, double rounded arch windows in the nave, all filled with stained glass. The choir has tall standing rounded arch windows, filled with stained glass. The apse has windows of the same form, filled with figurative stained glass. The top gables of the transepts have rose windows with natural stone tracery and stained glass infill. Below are four narrow tall windows set on a continuous horizontal course. In the roof plane of the apse a small roof chapel beneath a half-hipped roof has been placed in the centre.

From the convent the entrance to the chapel consists of large french doors with quilted panels. The nave has a pointed arch vault, above the crossing a brick cross vault with natural stone, painted ribs has been created. The floor is laid with cement tiles with floral motif. The walls are plastered and painted green with stations of the cross, above the wall is executed in brick. Pillars and small columns are provided with decorations and capitals with gold-coloured foliage.

In the interior the original polychromy has been preserved. The paintings are by the hand of J. Collette. Stained glass windows signed "Nicolas and sons Roermond" date from 1925.

Important elements from the inventory are the pulpit and high and side altars in neo-gothic style.

Outside the convent lies a narrow strip of green, separated from the street by a contemporary fence with brick pillars, provided with a natural stone capital.

Valuation.

The convent building with chapel is of general importance. The whole is of cultural-historical importance as an expression of the development of boarding school education for children of the Catholic elite by congregations in the late nineteenth century. It is furthermore of importance as a representative of the typological development of the Catholic congregational convent together with boarding school. The convent and chapel moreover have significant architectural-historical values due to their design, ornamentation and use of materials and have been preserved intact to a large extent both internally and externally. Such a large boarding school building is gradually becoming rare. Despite the demolition of a number of building elements the character of the whole is still very recognisable.