Dom Hans van der Laan

Dom Hans van der Laan (1904-1991) was a Dutch Benedictine monk and architect. He created a theory on three architectonic scales and his own proportional series, the Plastic Number. He published the book Architectonic Space, fifteen lessons on the disposition of the human habitat. In implementation of his theories, he built four convents and a house in a typically elementary and austere architecture. The most known of these are the St. Benedictusberg Abbey in the Netherlands and the Roosenberg Abbey in Belgium. The architect’s fundamental approach connects philosophical design concepts such as Keno nearness and superposition, inside and outside.