Berkel-Enschot village outside Tilburg, a good hours’ drive through the heavy lorry traffic to Eindhoven, was our temporary residence for Dutch Design Week. This recently vacated Trappist Nunnery, set back from the road behind ivy-covered gates became too large a building for the dwindling superfluity*, and simultaneously crowded in by the encroaching town.
In a quarter of the ground floor, sixteen theatre producers and playwrites have made home, walking the distance between the living rooms, bathroom and kitchen over cold, inlaid marble floors.
There were many remarkable things about this place, but that which set me shuddering was the expertly recounted story of the nun who spent the last two years of her life in solitary confinement. “Up there, behind the darkened window…”
This space is only accessible by climbing to the top of the building, then up another laddered stairway to the eaves of the chapel. Ducking under the beams along the narrow wooden walkway brings you to a trapdoor, which leads in turn to this tiny chamber.
If the story lent gravitas to the architecture, then this room pressed upon your superstitions until you squeeked; a dirty mat, a hand-painted cross, a fogged and distorted view through the glass to the chapel below, and cold like outside.
* Apparently ‘Superfluity’ is the correct collective noun for Nuns, but that unfortunately here suggests an excess, when the opposite is actually the case…hmm…But isn’t it good to learn a new (use for a) word?!
