What is "maashaus"

Maashaus is a spacious room taking the whole front part of a ground floor of a multi-stories Gothic or Renaissance town house.

This room was used mainly for serving beer, or other kinds of trade and craft. It was not heated. It also worked to link together other parts of the house, since it held a staircase to the first floor above ground (where the owner lived) and to the basement, an archway or similar passage to the courtyard and so on. The ceiling was almost always vaulted, was often supported by an asymmetrically placed central column. It was separated from the street or the arcade by a wall with a doorway and a window or multiple windows.