Dom Hans van der Laan in Practice

In this handbook, Caroline Voet unravels the design principles of Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904–1991). His ideas about spatial experience and proportions – in particular his unique discovery of the series of plastic numbers and the measurement system derived from it – have had a major influence and are still very much alive today.

Step by step, Voet redraws Van der Laan’s philosophy of architectural space and links it to his proportional system of the plastic number in a series of clear, carefully constructed analyses. The principles of his elementary architecture – further developed by the Bossche School – are examined on the basis of completed projects, from monasteries to residential houses.

With this book, Voet offers universal tools for reading the built environment and linking it to a layered human scale. They are powerful instruments for the complex design challenges of the future.

Caroline Voet is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture at KU Leuven, where she wrote her thesis on the spatial systematics in the work of Dom Hans van der Laan.