CONTEMPLATING SPACE

Year: 2022
Location: Culturgest Culture Centre, Lisbon
Client: Lisbon Architecture Triennale Terra
Co-curated with the architect and researcher at KU Leuven Caroline Voet

Some visionary projects were not created for our overly-connected world. They are not sensational, they are humble and introspective. To understand these visions properly we must disengage our minds from habitual routines, slow down, pay attention. It is never easy.  

This room is a portal into the realm of the Dutch ecclesiatic architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904-1991).

He was a visionary and a monk, who designed mostly for the needs of his Catholic brothers and sisters. Monasteries, churches, and just one private house constitute his very rational yet absolutely unorthodox body of work. 

Everything he has ever created – from a large monastic complex or a small chapel to furniture, ceremonial vessels or the robes for nuns – was designed according to his own proportional system called the Plastic Number, an alternative to the classical Golden ratio. 

Driven by belief in the divine purpose of architecture, van der Laan devised an incredibly democratic methodology which was supposed to help literally any architect to build harmonious spaces. Even today, the system remains applicable – also in civic architecture – and could probably benefit from a well-designed supporting software. 

Van der Laan’s  favourite references, such as Stonehenge, temples of Paestum and the Roman houses in Ostia demonstrate his avid interest in universality of forms. No surprise, that the Bendectine order saw his system and austere sensibility of designs as almost inappropriate in the conventional Catholic context.  

Belgian architect and researcher Caroline Voet who for years investigated van der Laan’s methodology, testing its practical applications, helped us to discover this almost unknown visionary and introduced us to the world of the Plastic Number.

Special thank you to: 

Marian Sisters of St. Francis, Roosenberg Abbey Waasmunster, Belgium / Abbes Sister Trees / The Benedictine monks, Abbey St. Benedictusberg, Vaals / Abbot Lenglet and Brother Lambertus 
The Van der Laan Foundation / Chairman Leo Versteijlen, Photographer Coen van der Heiden / VOET architectuur assistance by Laura Steenbeke

Some of the exhibits on display are shown for the first time. 

Photo: Nuno Cera, Sara Constanza 
Visionaries Lisbon Triennale

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