Almshouse Since 2003, this former mid-eighteenth-century almshouse houses the University library. Over the course of the centuries, this building has also served as a barracks, a military hospital, a detainee camp for political prisoners, the city archive and the city library. Erected in 1757, the building owes its grand style to a testamentary gift from a wealthy canon. The middle section of the façade is adorned with ornaments in Louis XV style. The cartouche above the entrance comes with a bilingual text: ‘Qui dat pauperi non indigebit. Die den armen geeft sal geen gebreck lyden. Pub. 28 V 27’ (‘who gives to the poor will not suffer any lack’). The building did not serve as almshouse for very long, however, because in 1793 it was claimed as a military barracks for the imminent war with France. The French victors subsequently turned it into a military hospital, the ‘Hôpital Militaire de la Concorde’. After the French era ended in 1814, the building – expanded with two wings at the backside – continued to be used as a military hospital until 1917, while it also became a military barracks again. During the Second World War the Germans claimed the building. Right after liberation the building was temporarily used as a camp for over one thousand political prisoners, called ‘De Groote Looier’. Until the late 1960s it was subsequently used for various military purposes again. In 1975, the City of Maastricht purchased the entirely dilapidated complex for housing its archive and the City library, a project that required large-scale renovation. When in 2000 the City library moved across the river to the Centre Céramique, the university bought the building for housing its library. This again involved major remodeling. By tearing down parts and adding a floor, the rather labyrinthine building of the former library was transformed into a transparent and accessible edifice that allows ample daylight to enter. Apart from its main entrance at Grote Looiersstraat, the architects also put in a back entrance at Nieuwenhofstraat, a design decision that made it possible to create a new public passageway for pedestrians and bicyclists between the two streets.