page_title: Predigerkloster
section_title: Buildings of the convent
hierarchical_section_title: Predigerkloster / Buildings of the convent
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Gebäude des ehemaligen Predigerklosters in Zürich nach dem Brand vom 25./26. Juni 1887
context_page_description: The Predigerkloster was a monastery of the Dominican Order, established around 1234 and abolished in 1524, in the imperial city of Zürich, Switzerland. Its church, the Predigerkirche, is one of the four main churches in Zürich, and was first built in 1231 as a Romanesque church of the then Dominican monastery. In the first half of the 14th century it was converted, the choir between 1308 and 1350 rebuilt, and a for that time unusually high bell tower built, regarded as the highest Gothic edifice in Zürich.
context_section_description: The former convent buildings were used, with the monastery buildings becoming a hospital. After the construction of the new hospital in 1842, they became the so-called "Versorgungsanstalt" where chronically ill, old, incurable mental patients were housed; the contemporaries complained until in 1870 when the Burghölzli sanatory was built. The convent buildings were sold in 1873 to the city of Zurich, which used it to house destitute citizens. But the old convent building burned down on 25 June 1887, its ruins were dismantled in the same year, and the open space was used for celebrations.
  On 28 June 1914, the citizens of Zürich agreed to the establishment of the Central Library (German: Zentralbibliothek), that was completed according to the plans by Hermann Fietz in 1917. So the cantonal library was outsourced, but in 1919 moved back, and again moved to make room for today's Staatsarchiv Zürich; therefore since 1982, the premise is used for the library, in particular for the so-called Musikabteilung.
caption: The burned-out ruins of the monastery, and the damaged roof of the nave of the Prediger church in mid-1877.
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