There is a large and growing CCR network of venues across Europe, including Hospitalfield House, a former hospital in Scotland; Domaine de Kergu?hennec Castle in Brittany, France; Schloss Br?llin manor house in Germany; and Monostori Erod Komarom, a fortress-turned-arts centre in Hungary.

The centre provides and helps with public cultural services. Its facilities have been created to attract artists and producers to comfortable and inspirational settings, while it also provides a nexus for cultural associations, congresses, seminars, meetings and arts-related conferences.

Following extensive renovation work, Neum?nster Abbey was opened to the public in its new role in May 2004, after which it swiftly established itself as a cultural centre. Within a year, it became the site for European Union newcomers Bulgaria and Romania to sign their treaties of accession with the bloc in April 2005.

The former abbey's public space is arranged on three levels around the inner court and cloisters. This space is occupied by exhibition halls, a multimedia production area, meeting rooms, conference rooms, press rooms and reception areas. Built into the roof is a large restaurant that offers splendid views of Luxembourg City.

However, Neumunster Abbey has not always provided such a dreamy environment.

For a long period, the abbey served as a prison. But today, a state-of-the-art, 283-seat theatre occupies the space that used to be the prison workshop, where inmates would make wicker chairs and bind books.

This theatre is known as Robert Krieps Hall after the late socialist and cabinet minister who was a giant in Luxembourg politics.

Krieps was arrested during the second world war by the Nazis and incarcerated at the age of 17 in the abbey when it had become Grund Prison. He was then moved to a concentration camp in Germany, where he decided that - if he survived - he would help transform the abbey-turned-prison into a centre of culture and hope. He did indeed survive the war, but he did not live long enough to see his dream come true.

Nevertheless, his vision is very real today. Two artists' studios and 12 apartments, built into former prison cells, provide accommodation and facilities to residing working writers and artists, with half the apartments being available for couples.

In the middle of the abbey's three buildings, and at the foot of some impressive rocky cliffs, stands a square of 3,200 square metres that is used for open-air events and receptions.

Art exhibitions are displayed in this central space, while the cliffs are often used to serve as a giant screen for massive projections.

Next to the main reception hall is the Lucien Wercollier Cloister, named after the great Luxembourg sculptor who, like Krieps, was another wartime prisoner there. After refusing a Nazi demand to create only 'Aryan art' and participating in a nationwide strike in 1942, Wercollier was arrested and incarcerated at Grund Prison on September 4, 1942, before spending the rest of the war in several concentration camps.

After the war, Wercollier became one of Luxembourg's most iconic artists and his sculptures stand in the grounds of the Palace of Europe in Strasbourg, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg City, on the soil of the first concentration camp that Wercollier was dispatched to in 1942 and in many other locations and private collections. Works from Wercollier's personal collection are permanently exhibited in the cloister. The cloister is also available for receptions and, with an area of 169 square metres, it can accommodate up to 250 visitors.

Today, Neumunster Abbey is a triumph of the most generous and creative aspects of humanity. But the abbey's long story provides an often painful narrative. Built by Benedictine monks in 1606, it was destroyed by fire in 1684. However, it was rebuilt on the same site in 1688 and then extended in 1720.

Revolutionary France annexed Luxembourg in 1795 and the following year the abbey was secularised and disbanded.

Beaten and dejected, the monks left the premises in December 1796 and their library and archives were seized by the French authorities. Three years later, the abbey complex was turned into a prison and a gendarmerie barracks.

After Luxembourg secured its independence from the French in 1815, the buildings were used as a military hospital for the Prussian troops of the Germanic Confederation - Luxembourg's new ally - stationed in the Grand Duchy's fortress.

In 1867, when the garrison departed, the abbey was again converted into a prison and remained a correctional facility until 1985. Many political prisoners, including Krieps and Wercollier, were arrested by the Gestapo during the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of Luxembourg and held at this centrally located prison before being transferred to Hinzert concentration camp, 30km to the east in Germany.

Indeed, some 4,000 victims of the Nazis passed through this prison during this nightmarish chapter of European history, mostly members of the Luxembourg resistance that included socialists, communists, trade unionists, anti-Nazi artists and writers.

Only 24 years ago, with the closure of Grund Prison, did these originally holy buildings cease to be used as a place of detention of one kind or other.

Five years ago, Neum?nster Abbey blossomed into an altogether new kind of institution.