Predigerkirche Zurich

A former friary church with a soaring Gothic choir, the Predigerkirche is one of the four principal churches of Zurich's old town, its name recalling the Dominican preaching friars who founded it. It stands in the Niederdorf quarter on the right bank of the Limmat.

The Dominicans established themselves here in the thirteenth century, and the church grew alongside their convent. In the fourteenth century the friars added a tall, luminous Gothic choir, its high windows and slender proportions among the most ambitious Gothic work in the city, expressing the order's emphasis on preaching and light. The nave and the tower, later raised and given a distinctive spire, complete the ensemble.

The Reformation transformed the church, as it did all of Zurich's medieval foundations. The convent was dissolved, and its buildings passed to civic and educational uses; parts of the former monastery later housed the cantonal library and the university's beginnings. The church itself became a Reformed parish church, stripped of its medieval imagery in keeping with Zwingli's teaching, and the interior today is comparatively plain, focusing attention on the architecture.

Set among the lanes and cafes of the Niederdorf, the Predigerkirche is a short walk from the Grossmünster and the central station. Its choir, glimpsed from the surrounding streets, is a fine sight, and the church is generally open to visitors free of charge outside services, hosting concerts on its organ. As one of the historic quartet of old-town churches, alongside the Grossmünster, the Fraumünster and St. Peter, it forms part of the essential architectural fabric of medieval Zurich and offers a quieter, less crowded stop than its famous neighbours.