Het Predikheren

Het Predikheren in Mechelen is a 130-capacity concert room inside the restored Predikherenkerk, next to the city library in a former Dominican complex. Its distinction is architectural and practical: a church deliberately kept open for cultural use now holds a compact theatre-style audience, giving performances the scale of a listening room within a much older civic site. For audiences, this is a seated, close-range setting designed for attentive sets and talks.

A monastery’s long route to the stage

Dominican refugees from ’s-Hertogenbosch settled in Mechelen around 1650 and established their monastery in 1654; after funds accumulated, they began a new church in 1720, completed 15 years later. The French Revolution brought seizure and closure, followed by use as a poorhouse, military hospital, arsenal and, after the First World War, Kazerne Delobbe. The final regiment left in 1977, leaving the complex vacant until Mechelen’s library conversion and reopening in September 2019. The church completed the site’s cultural turn in September 2024, after a lengthy restoration and more than four decades empty. Its public opening included a sold-out vinyl night with dEUS frontman Tom Barman on September 6, 2024—a fitting first event for a room now made for records, talks and live sets.

The room now

Programming centers professional jazz and classical music, while also making room for author events, lectures, presentations and congresses; Jazzzolder moved its concerts here after the opening, and Vinyl Sunday draws on the library’s 6,000-strong jazz-record collection. The 210-square-metre hall carries 130 seats in theatre formation with a tribune, plus a 120-square-metre mezzanine foyer. Its tuned acoustics suit acoustic and amplified performances, and the foyer’s bar can operate independently—useful for a pre-show drink while keeping the concert setup intimate.