Wit Gele Kruisgebouw Bethanie

English translation

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Description

Introduction

CLOISTER/NURSERY SCHOOL with "WHITE-YELLOW-CROSS BUILDING" Bethania of the Franciscan Sisters, built in 1922 in Expressionist style, commissioned by the parish of Our Lady of the Assumption. The design is by the French Benedictine monk-architect Paul Bellot. Initially the cloister was built for twelve sisters, in 1940 extended to fourteen. The sisters belonged to a teaching congregation whose mother house was established in "Mariadal" in Roosendaal. The cloister stands on Kloosterstraat directly opposite the parish church in the centre of Bavel with the short front facade facing south. The cloister stands detached on the property. At the front a narrow property enclosed by a low wall with railings. On the west side of the house on the ground floor behind the first window and door bay was located until the 1940 extension the premises of the White Yellow Cross. In the sixties they received their own accommodation at a new location.

Description

The brick cloister has a U-shaped plan with two storeys provided with composite hipped and gabled roofs with in the east facade a masonry gable end above chapel and nursery school. Centrally between the U-shape of the cloister a single-storey section under a flat roof containing both kitchens. The cloister consists of a front, middle and rear section. In the front section, which is built higher than the other parts, are located amongst others on the ground floor the entrance, superior's room and meeting room and on the first floor the chapel and sick room, all recognisable by the variation in window types. In the middle section below the refectory, recreation room, the kitchen and scullery with above the bedrooms. In the rear section the nursery school on the ground floor and above the drying loft, guest room and bathroom. The architecture is simple in design. The masonry consists of machine-made brick laid in header bond, with multicoloured brick in the arches. In the piers next to the wall openings decorative brickwork.

Above the windows concrete lintels with a surface treatment of washed gravel.

The roofs are covered with red and at the roof edges grey in mosaic laid newly improved Dutch tiles. Above the front door a small wooden canopy with in a niche an image of Saint Francis. Characteristic of the style of Dom Bellot are the renowned herringbone arches with falling tooth and the brick decorative brickwork. In the nursery school this comes out well. The entrance area, on the other hand, is provided with a large segmental arch. The defensive wall before the cloister consists of a masonry wall with above it wrought-iron bar railings. The interior is virtually authentic. The corridors, stairwell and chapel are plastered with brick panelling and horizontal edge, with accents of glazed brick. The long corridor has a subdivision in mural and segmental arches supported by pilaster-like piers. In the classroom three bay windows with window seats.

Valuation

The cloister with the internal nursery school is of general importance. It has cultural-historical value as an example of the development of Catholic congregations in the interwar period and as an example of the typological development of the small convent cloister. It has architectural-historical value because of its style and as an example of the work of the monk-architect Bellot. It has been preserved in good condition and is a rare specimen of Bellot's work.