1200 churches expected to be sold in the next ten years
According to Mickey Bosschert, real estate agent for religious property, some 1200 churches in the Netherlands will be sold in the next ten years. Some of these churches will be repurposed, while others will be torn down.
The latter option tends to be resisted by citizens, Bosschert told De Pers, because so many memories of baptisms, weddings and funerals are often attached to a church. Big church buildings in the middle of a city often occupy desirable locations.
Churches go for between 0.2 and 5.5 million euro. A famous, recently repurposed church that drew international attention is the Dominikanenkerk in Maastricht (see photo), which now houses a book store. British news paper The Guardian called it the most beautiful book store in the world. That is quite the accolade, considering it is owned by a chain and the interior has that chain store look.
(Photo by FaceMePLS, some rights reserved)
5 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Welcome to the new age of the barbarians.
Comment by Mar — May 11, 2010 @ 3:54 am
The real state property of the Church can never be sold; for what belongs to God, to God remains. What are sold are the souls of those who pretended they have the sold what is sold. But what are sold are the souls of the sellers.
Comment by Rodolfo — May 12, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
[…] constituent stores is situated in a former Dominican church in Maastricht and was called the most beautiful book store in the world by a British newspaper in 2008. If you are having trouble recognising the irony: the word is more […]
Pingback by 24 oranges » Stormy weather for world’s “most beautiful book store” — February 1, 2014 @ 1:10 pm
[…] 1200 churches expected to be sold in the next ten years […]
Pingback by 24 oranges » The man who sells church interiors — September 13, 2014 @ 10:29 am
[…] a ‘holy’ building may seem a little irreverent, but as we wrote earlier, it seems that people prefer repurposing over tearing down. These buildings have memories of […]
Pingback by 24 oranges » Church gets new life as trampoline park in The Hague — September 13, 2014 @ 1:57 pm