Bookstore Inside the Church of Maastricht, Netherlands

Selexyz Dominicanen – a store created from a merger between the town's Bergman's bookshop, the Academische Boekhandel, and the Dutch Selexyz bookshop chain – is housed in the thrilling setting of a 13th-century Dominican church. This haunting building was once part of a friary, knocked about over the centuries by various invading armies. Right up until last Christmas, in possibly its strangest incarnation, it was being used by the citizens of Maastricht as a glorious, or possibly inglorious, indoor bike pound. As for the Dominicans, they were driven out by Napoleon in 1794. After a brief spell as a parish church, this magnificent Gothic prayer hall – it has no tower or transepts, in keeping with the rules of the clerical order that built it – was turned into nothing holier than a warehouse.

The most beautiful bookshop in the world, the Dominicans' church, Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Today, the church, consecrated in 1294, could hardly be more popular. The beautifully restored building is an attraction in its own right, and yet the installation of a towering, three-storey black steel bookstack in the long, high nave, together with a fashionable if somewhat noisy cafe in the choir, works extraordinarily well. The church and bookshop look as if they might have been made for one another.

As more European churches become redundant, we need to dream up new uses for them. Happily, books and churches have always gone together: in the beginning, as St John tells us, was the Word; the word was, in time, written down in books. At first, these were mighty tomes read by priests alone. Such was their value that, at the time this church was built, they were chained to vaulted library walls.

The bookshop installation here is by the Dutch architects Merkx + Girod, founded in 1998 and led from Amsterdam by Evelyne Merkx and Patrice Girod. The dominant new element in the church is the high-rise bookshelf structure stretching up to the stone vaults. The bookshop keeps popular books on lower shelves, while it places academic, esoteric, and theological works You can reach these by stairs within the sleek, well-made bookstack, although a lift is also available. There is also a lift. [Source]

First Image credit: Roberto Braam