Kolleg St. Ludwig is a Maharishi European Research University (MERU) campus located in

Vlodrop Vlodrop (, ) is a village in the south-eastern part of The Netherlands in the municipality of Roerdalen Roerdalen (; ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, in the province of Limburg (Netherlands), ...

, The

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. It was originally built in 1909, used as a Franciscan friary and boarding school and purchased by the

Maharishi Foundation The Transcendental Meditation movement (TM) are programs and organizations that promote the Transcendental Meditation technique founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India in the 1950s. The organization was estimated to have 900,000 participant ...

in 1984. The campus is near the villages of Vlodrop-station and

Limburg Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...

, the

, adjacent to the Dutch–German border and the defunct

Iron Rhine The Iron Rhine or Steel Rhine (; ) is a partially operational freight rail corridor connecting the port of Antwerp (Belgium) and Mönchengladbach (Germany) by way of Neerpelt and the Dutch towns of Weert and Roermond. The Treaty of London be ...

railroad, and is surrounded by Meinweg National Park.MERU, Holland

History

A group of Franciscan brothers from

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

purchased the land from the owner of a castle in the southern Limburg region of the Netherlands.

The college was named after

Saint Louis of Toulouse Saint Louis of Toulouse (9 February 1274 – 19 August 1297), also known as Louis of Anjou, was a Neapolitan prince of the Capetian House of Anjou and a Catholic bishop. Life Louis was born in Brignoles, Provence (or in Italy, at Nocera, whe ...

, a saint who was an heir to the throne of Napoli, but who renounced the throne and gave it to his younger brother, and himself became a Franciscan friar, took all the Franciscan vows and served the poor, the sick and the hungry. The seminary building was designed by a monk and featured 600 doors and 1,200 windows, all covered by of roof. Started in 1904 and completed in 1909, it was completely self-sufficient, with its own generators, workshops, wells, fields and orchards. A small-gauge railroad was built first to transport building materials and then to carry the 300 tons of coke used annually for heating. It was evacuated during World War II and reopened as a school in 1951. It closed in 1978. It was attended by over 3,000 male students. Kolleg St

The Franciscans sold the property to the Dutch government for use as a police training facility but it was never put to use. The Maharishi Foundation purchased the property in 1984 for US$900,000 and it later became the Maharishi European Research University (MERU) campus as well as

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (born Mahesh Prasad Varma, 12 January 191? – 5 February 2008) was the creator of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and leader of the worldwide organization that has been characterized in multiple ways, including as a new ...

's movement headquarters and residence. The buildings were old, inefficient, in disrepair and did not meet the Maharishi's design standards so his organization entered a two-year "courtroom battle" with preservationists who tried to block the demolition of the Kollege St. Ludwig building which "was abandoned in 1978". A three-story, nearly life-sized canvas illustration of the intended replacement building was put up on the front side of the partially demolished building. The local government later ordered its removal. According to a 2008 report, the MERU Foundation indicated it would consider leaving the site if permission to demolish the old building was not granted.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolleg St. Ludwig Transcendental Meditation Buildings and structures in Limburg (Netherlands) Education in Limburg (Netherlands) Roerdalen