Exterior view

The Saint Augustine Church at the Kammenstraat in Antwerp was once the convent church of the Augustinian friars. The church was the first major building project of the later Augustinian monastery. It was built between 1615 and 1618 under the leadership of Wenceslas Cobergher, court architect of the archdukes Albert and Isabella. The style is described as Early Baroque, but especially in the fa�ade there are still clear characteristics of the local Renaissance traditions. This screen fa�ade conceals a three-aisled nave without a transept and with a relatively large choir.

In the fa�ade of this church Cobergher made a remarkable compromise with local tradition. He was able to link the top gable of the two storeys of the fa�ade with elegant volutes. The church is not free-standing and perhaps because of this the fa�ade is only three bays wide instead of five, as in the Gesù-type fa�ades. This gives the church a vertical appearance, so that it also looks more organically linked into the seventeenth-century Antwerp street scene, which was dominated by narrow pointed elevations.

The photo shows the fa�ade of the Augustinian church.