Heilige Engelbewaardersschool

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Complex Koestraat 35-41 Oirschot (2): On the western side of the cloister courtyard lies the CLOISTER CHAPEL, built in 1910 according to a design by Jos Cuypers and Jan Stuyt. The chapel is executed in Neo-Romanesque style. The building is not oriented: the choir, markedly positioned between two flanking towers, stands at right angles to the Koestraat situated on the southern side.

Description: The cloister chapel is a lofty three-aisled romanticizing cruciform church with a nave of two bays, a transept of one bay and at the street a choir section with lower-set half-round apse, above which a high stepped gable with flanking towers. The facades are built of brick and have a tiled round-arched frieze with sawtooth mouldings. In the transept facades there is decorative brickwork with star motifs. The perpendicular buttresses are carried high. In the nave, choir bay and transept, the clerestory consists of round-arched triplets. The choir section determines the appearance of the church. The towers have a square floor plan, consist of broadly four divisions and are covered by a pyramidal roof with roof tiles. The brick facades are articulated by narrow windows and bands with tile tableaux and at the level of the bells have an open bifore with double stone column. The central stepped gable has a climbing herringbone-arch frieze and is covered with ridge tiles and a roof ornament in the form of a stylised Greek cross. Various tile tableaux are mortared into the facade: one with a Mary monogram, one with the text: "Tu Gloria Jerusalem / Tu Laetitia Israel / Tu Honorifigentia Populi Nostri". Below the herringbone-arch frieze of the apse is a series of tableaux with Catholic motifs: crown, crowned sword, stella maris, golden calf, angel at altar, two church buildings, rose, chalice, the holy sacrifice of the mass, sacrament house and paten. In the round-arched windows of the apse are stained-glass panels placed according to a design by Luc. Van Hoek with among other things the image of Mary with Child. On the eastern side of the choir a single-storey sacristy under gabled roof with improved Dutch tiles has been built on. In the brick facade a series of four coupled round-arched windows with wrought-iron ventilation irons and stone sills. Against the small building stands a round-arched portico under gabled roof. On the western side, in an annex built at right angles, parallel to the western arm of the transept, is the main entrance of the church. The clasped hinged door is set in a round-arched portal with tufstone framing, which is crowned by a figure with round-arched canopy, in which a limestone statue of St. Francis. The portal is flanked by two round-arched lights with stained-glass. The interior has in the nave and transept square columns clad with black marble that carry round arches, above which the triplets of the clerestory. In the nave the square columns alternate with round marble columns. The space has cross-rib vaults. The whole was renovated around 1960 and preserves from the original interior still the church pews. Adjoining on the north side is the space for choir prayer, a three-aisled hall with round-arched windows, simple diagonally placed columns and a plastered coffered ceiling. Above it the former sick choir.

Valuation: The cloister chapel is of general importance. The building has cultural-historical value as an example of a spiritual development, namely the flourishing of orders and congregations in the early twentieth century and is also of importance as an example of the typological development of the convent and boarding school chapel shortly after 1900. It is architecturally important because of the style with which the architects Cuypers and Stuyt brought about a break with the traditional Catholic institutional style through material use and ornamentation. It has ensemble values as part of a complex of convent, chapel, schools and rectory and the role in the silhouette of the place. As a large and coherent convent complex it has become relatively rare.