The history of the conference venues

Tongersestraat 53

This building is a former Jesuit monastery which in its present state dates from the end of the thirties and start of the forties of the last century. The Jesuits bought the plot including the barracks built on it in 1867, when the stronghold of Maastricht was dismantled. At the time the order was based in the Tongersestraat, more precisely in the city hotel bought from viscount Vilain XIIII. Two years after the extension, building work started on a Neo-Gothic church, which was pulled down in 1976 by the then University of Limburg to create the present car park.

During the total redevelopment of de 20th century, the gate of the city hotel was moved 30 metres east; its façade with the voluted Maasland gable was moved and turned 90 degrees. The gate then gave access to the church, which started serving as a parish church as well. The entrance portal to the left of the gate was turned into a Lady Chapel for the special Jesuit devotion for Mary Consoler of the Afflicted. In 1974 the last Jesuits left and the Ministry of Education purchased the buildings to found a new university on the premises. At first the University shared the building with Rijkswaterstaat (the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management), but in 1985 the Faculty of Economics took over the whole building. In 1991 the grand auditorium, designed by the Jo Coenen and completed with splendid paintings by Princess Francina Ndimande, was finished.

 
Minderbroederberg

Between 1699 and 1797 this building was the monastery of the Franciscans or friars minor (Minderbroeders). In 1806 the former monastery housed a House of Correction and adjoining House of Detention for 120 persons, including 12 women, police detention cells in the cellar (which are still there today) and the mounted police whose horses were stabled in the absis (part of the church near the altar) and the two aisles of the church. From 1825 the Hall of Justice was based in the church, extended with a Magistrates' Court in 1860.

During a fire in 1866 the roof was destroyed and it took as much as four years to restore it. In 1907 the military police (previously the police force) moved elsewhere. 1926 saw the start of a large renovation of the property with the purpose to provide more appropriate accommodation to both the Magistrates and the prisoners. Until 1975 the Minderbroedersberg was kept in use as a House of Detention and in 1995 the Maastricht district court moved to a part of the former St. Annadal hospital. After the clergy, the government and the judiciary, Maastricht University became the next user of the monument. By the end of 1998, after major alterations to the building, the Board of the University and part of the University administration moved into the Minderbroedersberg. The character and period features of the building have been carefully preserved. In many parts of the building one can still clearly see that the building was once designed as a monastery: in the square inner garden, the cloisters surrounding the inner court (with the exception of the corridor that ran parallel to the church, which was demolished in the 19th century), the refectory which is now in use as such again and the capitals of the columns in the aisles to the nave of the church.

Bouillonstraat

This building was traditionally the seat of the provincial administration of Limburg and the house of the Governor. Maastricht has had a Governor residing within its walls since 1567: at first this concerned a military Governor appointed by Viceroy Margareta of Parma and the Prince-Bishop of Liège. The title of Governor was subsequently, in 1815, passed on to the head of the Provincial Government of Limburg, who was appointed by the Crown. From 1616 to 1986 the government had its seat in the premises at the Bouillonstraat. The present building was completed in the period from 1929-1935. In 1986 the building, together with the buildings at the Kapoenstraat 2 and Lenculenstraat 14-14r, was bought by the University in order to accommodate the Executive Board and the Faculty of Law. Many reminders of its previous public function are still present today in the former government building, in particular the exquisite details of its façades, but also the interior that is marked by a certain grandeur.