Selexyz Dominicanen Bookshop in Maastricht

We visited an Old Church that was converted into a Modern Bookstore

You might be religious or not, but this Old Church in Maastricht will bring all the enlightenment you might be seeking since it was converted into a bookshop a couple of years ago. It became one of the best examples we ever saw of adaptive reuse architecture.

Nowadays the Selexyz Dominicanen bookstore is infused with a rich mixture of the architecture of different eras with bookshelves covered with information and culture.

Book your room at the Kruisherenhotel Maastricht and spend your weekend in a dream location!

Built in 1294, this Dominican church worked as planned until Maastricht was invaded by Napoleon back in 1794 and expelled the Dominicans from the country. The same thing happened to the hotel where we spent the night, Kruisherenhotel Maastricht.

Before it became the Selexyz Dominicanen, this church was used briefly as a parish; then it became a warehouse, then an archive. Before it became a bookstore, it was a huge parking lot for bicycles which is one of our favorite uses of a church.

It was only in 2007 that the architecture firm Merkx + Girod started a project called Selexyz Dominicanen Maastricht.

A Beautiful Bookshop in Maastricht that used to be a Church

The re-use project was led by architecture firm Merkx + Girod, and the project highlights the stone walls with a towering black steel bookshelf that leads almost to the ceiling of this old church. From up there you can see the church nave, and it’s something special and unique.

At the back of the Selexyz Dominicanen bookstore, there is a café where you have the best views from the beautifully renovated ceiling frescoes. Also, there is a beautiful circular chandelier where the choir used to stand that seems to work as a halo, and it completes this former church in a stylish way.

We can only imagine how difficult it might be to repurpose a church like this one. Just the sheer scale of it would make the maintenance of it pretty expensive. But, the way that architecture firm Merkx + Girod maximized the interior space of Selexyz Dominicanen, there is a secure future to this historical building that became a must-see for book lovers and architecture lovers alike. Even the Guardian named this bookstore one of the World’s Best Bookshops in the world back in 2008.

We visited Maastricht back in December 2017 and we stayed at the amazing Kruisherenhotel Maastricht and you should stay there too.