Hans van der Laan

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Hans van der Laan, around 1978

Dom Hans van der Laan (born December 29, 1904 in Leiden , Netherlands; † August 19, 1991 in Mamelis near Vaals ) was a Dutch Benedictine monk and architect.

Van der Laan dedicated his life to the search for the fundamental principles of architecture. His theories on numerical relationships and systems of measurement such as plastic numbers had a great influence on architectural theory in the middle of the 20th century.

Life

Family background and childhood

Hans van der Laan was born in Leiden, the ninth of eleven children. His father was the architect Leonard van der Laan (1864–1942), his mother Anna Stadhouder (1871–1941). He had five brothers and five sisters. Hans' eldest and youngest brother (Jan and Nico) also became architects. Jan went to his father's office in 1921, and Nico founded his own office in 's Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) in 1946 . Hans worked with him a lot later.

At a very young age, Hans began to ask himself fundamental questions about nature, which no one could answer for him, including his father and brother Jan. It wasn't until much later that he found a suitable interlocutor in Nico to philosophize about nature and architecture.

The architectural setting of his youth was, in his own words, of extraordinary beauty. His home was a former orphanage from the 17th century and from his bedroom window he could see the facade of a Gothic church that always fascinated him. Behind the garden of his house is a medieval fortress, the Burcht , on a hill . A fortress ring with a diameter of 60 meters marks the city center. The escape hill dates from the 11th or 12th century, the walling from the 17th century. Like many Dutch cities, Leiden was built as a fortress city, but the fear there is the last one that still exists. The location of the Burcht was chosen for strategic reasons, as it lies between the old and the new Rhine.

Hans often played in this fear as a child. All the games had something to do with the impressive inside and outside. Hans says: It was pure space, surrounded by a thick wall that was interrupted by arches. He described these first childhood experiences with architecture as an imprint for life.

youth

As a teenager, Hans often took long, lonely walks by the sea or in a castle park outside of Leiden. There he philosophized for himself without much contact with his immediate surroundings. He says: This intense discovery of nature at a formative age has influenced the direction of my entire life. At times he wanted to become a biologist because of his closeness to nature. When he was seventeen, he developed tuberculosis . Despite the serious illness, he spent whole days in nature to relax. Lying on a cot, he enjoyed birds, trees and the "rhythm of things". With this mental nourishment from childhood and adolescence, he began his architecture studies in Delft in 1923 .

Education

Tuberculosis delayed the start of his studies, but shortly before his 19th birthday he was able to start in 1923. Before that, in the second year of recovery, Hans worked in the architecture office of his father and brother Jan, who had only recently started. He designed furniture for his student apartment and studied higher mathematics by himself, which is why he was way ahead of his fellow students in drawing, mathematical knowledge and technical experience.

Hans was critical of architecture in Delft from the start, also because of his head start. He saw his fellow students drawing things that were no longer used in practice, but they did not see how they were made. Hans wanted to approach architecture exactly as he had previously thought, but never got the chance. In his view, fundamental principles are the basis by which knowledge is imparted. He was downright shocked by the absence of such principles in the form of design theory in Delft. He says: In the case of modern architecture, most of what counts as theory is just a manipulation of design concepts - derived from building experience. In van der Laan's view, the theories taught in Delft do not help design, they only explain it. The act of design remains as a creative mystery, somehow transferable, but not rationally communicable. Every designer had to unnecessarily reinvent the act.

In the second year of his studies, Hans got in touch with the newly appointed Professor Marinus Jan Granpré Molière (1883–1972). Hans says about him: I've always seen him as my master, the one who opened the way for architecture to me. Molière is the architect of the garden city Vreewijk near Rotterdam and was a founding member of the Opbouw organization, which dealt with Dutch functionalism in the 1920s. Molière's status roughly resembled that of Heinrich Tessenow in Germany, the architect von Hellerau . The appointment of Molière to Delft University filled Hans and many others with hope. His lectures were very popular.

Shortly after his appointment as professor, a group of architecture students formed around Molière, called the Bouwkundige Study Kring (BSK) and was founded by Hans van der Laan and twelve other students.

With the aim of discovering the essential foundations of architecture, the BSK discussed contemporary publications by Le Corbusier , the De Stijl Group and Jacques Maritain . Neither the teachings of Molière nor the discussions about these publications brought him closer to his goal.

At the end of van der Laan's third year of studies, he broke off his studies in 1926, probably also because, in his opinion, this goal could not be achieved by studying architecture. The BSK lost sight of Van der Laan's goal, but continued to do a good job and became known as the Delftse School .

novitiate

In the year after dropping out of his studies, he entered the Benedictine Abbey of St. Paul in Oosterhout as a novice . Some have linked van der Laan's decision to go to a monastery to his ascetic architecture. He himself explains the reason: All possible factors play a role in such a decision. One was certainly the unsatisfactory nature of teaching in Delft, which did not penetrate the principles of architectural design. He says nothing about other reasons that are probably more decisive. To those who knew him, however, it seems unlikely that the decision was an ascetic retreat from the material world. According to his fellow students, he was confident and intellectually mature. Nor did he give the impression of excessive piety.

For van der Laan, going to the monastery was neither a rejection of the world nor the abandonment of his architectural talent. It was rather, as he says, a strategy to push through his search for the fundamental principles of architecture. The proximity to the Catholic faith also influenced this search. For example, he combined the design of the abbey in Vaals with the principles of St. Benedict on moderation.

As a novice, he was initially interested in the design of liturgical objects and church furniture. In 1929 he took his monastic vows and was ordained a priest in 1933 . He developed his system of proportions, the " plastic number ", in his novice era. It is said that Dom Hans van der Laan was only allowed to deal with architecture for half an hour a day on the instructions of the abbot.

1945–1980

After the construction of the first building based on his theory (guest wing of the Benedictine nuns in Oosterhout), he was invited to present his theses to a group of former students from Delft and Granpré Molière in a series of lectures. It was the first opportunity since joining the monastery twelve years earlier to share his meditations on architecture with others. From this, the Bossche School developed , in which the van der Laan brothers Hans and Nico also got involved. It is described as a traditionalist current that is heavily based on numerical relationships and thus on Hans' theory. The course in which van der Laan lectured dealt primarily with church architecture . The Bossche School was run by Nico van der Laan from 1946 to 1973. However, while he was teaching, Hans van der Laan's theory continued to mature.

In 1955 he went on a study trip to Rome . In the late 1960s he was strongly influenced by photographic findings about Stonehenge . He also visited the ruins of Ostia Antica .

The last few years

Van der Laan ended his search for the fundamental principles of architecture in 1977 with the completion, publication and translation of his work “De architectonische ruimte”. After a cataract operation in 1984, which almost cost him his eyesight, he published "Het vormenspel der liturgie" in 1985. In 1989 he was awarded the Limburg Prize for Architecture for the Abbey in Vaals and he wrote “The Instruments of Order”, a final synthesis of his theory. Despite a serious illness that same year and physical weakness, he remained intellectually active until his death on August 19, 1991.

Works

Buildings

Dom Hans van der Laan designed mainly sacred buildings, and his theory also often dealt with sacred typologies.

  • St. Jozef Memorial Chapel, Helmond (1948)

  • St. Benedictusberg Abbey, Mamelis (1967)

  • St. Roosenberg Abbey, Waasmunster (1975)

He always designed the furniture for his buildings. He also developed a script and designed monastic robes.

theory

Van der Laan's theory describes fundamental principles of architecture. To do this, van der Laan uses a system of measurement he developed himself, the plastic number .

He has written several books on his theory, the main work being The Architectural Space .

literature

  • Ferlange, Alberto: Dom Hans van der Laan - Works and Words , Architectura & Natura, 2011, ISBN 978-94-6140-019-2
  • Dom Hans van der Laan: The Architectural Space - Fifteen Lessons on the Disposition of Human Housing , Brill, Leiden 1992
  • Ferlenga, Alberto; Verde, Paola: Dom Hans van der Laan - works and words , Architectura & Natura, 2001
  • Padovan, Richard: Dom Hans van der Laan - modern primitive , Architectura & Natura, 1994
  • Dom Hans van der Laan: Het vormenspel der liturgie , Brill, 1985

Web links

Commons : Hans van der Laan (architect)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Laan, Hans van der
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch Benedictine monk and architect
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Leiden , Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH August 19, 1991
Place of death Mamelis , Vaals