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.