Hans Vander La An

8/13/2019 Hans Vander La An

1/10

Where Sky Rubs Against Soil:The Metaphorical Horizon in Dom. Hans van der Laans ArchitectureWilliam T Willoughby, Louisiana Tech University

Where Sky Rubs Against Soil:

The Metaphorical Horizon in Dom. Hans van der Laans Architecture

William T Willoughby, Louisiana Tech University

Where the bottom layer of the sky rubs up against the top horizon of the soil, all terrestrial life is found.

-- William Bryant Logan,Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth(New York: Riverhead Books, 1995) 178

IntroductionThe work and writings of Benedictine monk Dom. Hans van der Laan (1904-1991) are concerned with the

origins of architecture. Hans van der Laan suggests architecture has lost touch with its origins. Thirty years of

attempts at rediscovering the primeval foundations of architecture led to the bookArchitectonic Space, published in

Dutch in 1977, and in English in 1983. His contributions to architecture in the twentieth century are still relatively

unknown and overlooked; and yet Hans van der Laans lessons on architectural making are worthy of consideration.

The purpose of this essay is to explore and extend the metaphorical themes of this teacher/author/architect.

Hans van der Laan was born in 1904, in Leiden, Holland to the architect Leonard van der Laan; Hans was

the ninth of eleven children. Two of his brothers, the oldest (Jan) and youngest (Nico), became architects as well. It

was in collaboration with his brother Nico that Hans would carry our most of his work as architect, teacher, and

theorist.1After a year of therapy for tuberculosis, which required whole days outdoors on camp beds in the fresh

air, Hans van der Laan began his studies at Delft in 1923. By 1927, and well into his third year of architecturalstudies, Hans van der Laan gave up architecture for the monastic life. He was critical of the teaching at the

Technical University of Delft; he sensed an absence of fundamental principles and a lack of an internal, cumulative

body of architectural knowledge. Thus, he entered as a novice in the Benedictine order.

Between 1939 and 1972 he developed a summation of architectural research from a combination of

research for his lecture course and buildings designed in collaboration with his brother Nico, and later Nicos sons

Hans and Rik. A group of former students and followers, the so-called Bossche School, formed around his teachings

and buildings. He published two books from his lectures, The Plastic Number(1960) andArchitectonic Space

(1977). In 1982, he arranged an exhibition of his work, including demonstration-models of key concepts from his

books. His final book,Het vormenspieil der liturgie, was published in 1985. In 1989, he was awarded the Limburg

Architecture Prize. Dom. Hans van der Laan died August 19th1991.

The Importance of Origins

An origin is a singular occurrence. A things origin may take thousands of years, while other origins occurin a momentary flash of confluent circumstance and inspiration. There is a certainty to a time in the historical past

when a thing came into being. Yet origins share a subtle relationship to the recurrent nature of beginnings.2Origins,

when complete, can never be retained; thus, origins are unknowable. They are subject to theoretical speculation,

shaped by current human understanding, and dependent on belief in a certain story or myth concerning how things

began. A search for origins always touches on the metaphorical.

According to Christian belief, the visible world has its origins when God the Creator drew it forth, in all its

diversity and order, out of nothingness.3All that exists is owed to God. All of nature, including human history, is

constituted by this original event. God creates out of nothing; but human creation relies on pre-existent matter. All

human making is a refashioning of nature by human action and intellect.4

The natural universe can be understood as a miraculous image of the invisible God,5destined forand

addressed tohumanity. Another gift of God, human intelligence, can understand what wisdom and order God puts

forth through the natural universe. Gods wisdom and intelligence can be understood by humanity, though not

without great effort, respect, and humility toward God and Creation. From the Wisdom of Solomon, For it is he who

gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements; . . .

for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.6Thus human making, when approached and completed in awe

of the wisdom and goodness Gods creation, can serve to reveal Gods plan.

As Dom. Hans van der Laan states, The first question in architecture is not therefore, what we make of the

house, or what kind of house we make, but the making as such. For Hans van der Laan, architecture is always a

rhapsodic matter of construction. In this sense, constructiondoes not mean what we make fromor what kind of thing

we make, but what of makingitself?What is basic to, and inseparable from, human making? As Hans van der Laan

states, Human making is of great significance for creation as a whole, because it gives an image within nature, of


2/10


2

natures own origin.7To paraphrase Hans van der Laan architecture, as a form of human making, is a metaphor

an imitation of the order of Creation.

Gods Creation The Human in NatureAs Hans van der Laan states in his first lesson, The house is among the first things a person needs to

maintain their existence in nature. He supports this statement with a quote from the Bible that concerns home and

hospitality, The essentials for life are water and bread and clothing and a house to cover ones nakedness. (Sirach29:21)8

These humannecessities potable water, bread, clothing and housing are refined and reshaped from

nature and made suitable by human intellect and action. According to Hans van der Laan, the world we humans

create for ourselves is an additionto the natural world; a completion of the natural world made habitable by us.

Much like a pair a sandals crafted to protect the feet, this human world has dual purpose: to confront nature outside

with an according toughness, and insidewith the opposite, to create an environment fitted to human comfort.9

A monk of the Benedictine order, Hans van der Laan obviously shared belief in the existence and authority

of God. And thus the natural world and all things within it are a creation of Gods order and intellect. Hans van der

Laan made a distinction between a limited, created intelligence (that belonging to humanity) and an unlimited,

creating intelligence (that belonging to God).10

Hans van der Laans position begins with an image of the limited humancreating within the unlimited

creation of nature. All forms and spaces created by humans are extracted fromthe vast and extended space and mass

of nature brought about by a creating and unlimited intelligence. Our human existence forms limits within the

limitless; we construct definable horizons of our own making.

Interestingly, Hans van der Laan defines two actions the human undertakes in the making of architecture

humans extract fromand add tothe natural world through the creation of architecture. Obviously, material is

extracted from nature in order to build; but human intellectand actionare added to nature by human making. In a

limited way, human making (always in imitation of the Creator) transforms the natural world. For Hans van der

Laan, human making must always resonate back to the origin of nature, Gods Creation.

Gods intelligence and intervention creates and sustains the infinitude of Creation; and within it, human

intelligence and intervention creates and sustains a limited human creation. Thus, it is the manner by which humans

create that reflects, by analogy, the image of God as Creator.

According to Hans van der Laan, it is through the similarities and differences conjured by the above

analogy that we begin to see the placement of human making as within nature. As he states, For our making is not,

like nature, an independent phenomenon, but dependent on natural creation. We do not make a space, but extract it

from the space of nature, and moreover, this extraction is brought about by solid elements which are themselves

drawn from the masses of the earth.11

The Origins of Architecture Vitruvius, Laugier, and van der LaanWhen we speak of architectural origins, we must consult the idea and myth of the primitive hut. The

account by Vitruvius concerning the emergence of architecture, according to Rykwert, appears to be elliptical, and

references are made to various other writings.12The Vitruvian account was assembled from observation of existent

primitive (or barbaric) examples of his time and literary sources that comment on the origins of art and civilization

(Seneca and Lucretius).

Yet Vitruvius makes us aware (and assuages criticism) of his conscious decision to place his origin of the

building art in hissecond bookand nothis first. Vitruvius is skeptical of the completenessof origins. For him,

originsdo not show perfection, since all the branches of learning and study are not yet represented, and neither are

all qualities yet in evidence. He concludes that architectures origin commences the discussion of his second book,

leading to a treatment of how it [the building art] was fostered. And how it made progress, step by step, until it

reached its present perfection.13Laugier imagined an original architecture, a little hut, which combines human invention with a natural

model. Both Rykwert and Summerson drive home the point that Laugier saw three elements as original and thus

constituent to the ideal building columns carrying the entablature, which in turn carries the pediment or roof.14

Architecture becomes allegorical myth, a representational retelling of archaic practices in permanent form; a

monument to an ideal past. Unlike Vitruvius, Laugier securely embracesarchitectures ideal origins; he sees the

original parts (column, entablature, and pediment) as essential to the cause of beauty. He excludes all other

elements (vault, pedestal, attic, door, window, etc.) as secondary and consequential -- added by necessity or caprice.

Thus, Laugier dictates, Let us never lose sight of our little hut.15


3/10


3

For Hans van der Laan, origins are more prosaic. His origins are derived from simple observation of the

natural world around him. They exist as easily in the present as they might have in the primordial past. The writings

of Hans van der Laan can be read with an air of dismissive obviousness. A reader might assume his writings are the

naive voice of a believer of the sacred, and thus lack effect in a predominantly secular world. As he puts it, A few

natural pebbles and a few squared pieces of stone have helped us arrive at these insights . . .16Yet his simple and

unsophisticated observations accumulate and later develop into a metaphor that relates architecture and human

intelligence to the cosmos.

The Origins of Construction -- Number, Measure, Proportional Order and the TrilithonHans van der Laans attempt to rediscover the origins of architecture have led him to observe the natural

world with a simple intensity similar to that of the ancient Greeks. Inquiry into Pythagoras numberdoctrine

produces a remarkable similarity to Hans van der Laans revelation of how the first qualities ofform, when

originally liberated fromsurface, includessize. Size connotes an intellectual distinction between the continuous

quantity of surface and the discretequantity of form. The outline of form can be understood by the intellect through

measure(the appraisal of size). [See figure 1]

As Hans van der Laan states,

. . . the intellect has need of an instrument. This is because it only has direct access to discrete

quantity, the how-many-ness of things we count on the basis of their unity. Each number then

expresses the quantity by its relation to this unit and we can give this relation a name: two, three, four . . .

We can hold only a limited number of these relations in our mind, but by means of an established

number-system we can extend them into infinity . . . We can translate this grasp of number into a certain

grasp of size, that is, of continuous quantity or how-muchness.17

What Hans van der Laan discusses is the establishment of a unit of measure which is connected to

discrete, continuous quantities: numbers which represent, to the intellect, a quantity with relation to a basic unit or

size-interval. For Hans van der Laan number, and by extension, measureare basic instruments of induction the

passage from certain qualities within the natural world, in this casesize into a quantity (a measure) which can be

understood by the human intellect. [See figure 2]

Hans van der Laans origin of architecture extends from the initial measuring-out offormas distinguished

fromsurface Where a piece of stone is removed from the earth there arises automatically a spatial form that

corresponds like a matrix to the solid form of the stone.18Hans van der Laans view of architectures origin is

echoed by Sverre Fehn in his essay How our Dimensions are Born:

In the beginning the cave and the earth itself were the dimensions of the cave. The floor had its own

thickness of earth and the dimensions of the wall of the cave stopped at the beginning of the sea. [a

definition of the continuity of surface authors insert]

In reality there was no defined dimension when your comprehension of the world carried infinity within

it. The only ultimate was the killed animal outside the cave mouth, the only thing that kept you firmly in

the universe. And that animal corpse was resurrected on the walls of the cave. An abode was sought in the

nature of the animal.

I have no idea how many years went by before the autonomous dimension was born in front of the

cave mouth . . . the stone, hacked in one rectangular volume. Height. Length. Width. How

incomprehensible the work of creation in a limited malleable quantity must have been. The greatest

poetic manifestation in limited form. The first security, the first written sign in the landscape resting

secretively in the hewn stone. The story of you and I again standing on the plain. Time was given a

dimension . . .19

Furthermore, in Platos Timaeus, numeric proportions remain fundamental to the origins of form. In the

body of the text, Platos mythic Demiurge assembles the body of the universe tangibilityis observably impossible

without something solid, and nothing solid without earth. The subsequent premise suggests the principle of

proportionimplicit in the three-dimensionality of solids:

And of all the bonds the best is that which makes itself and the terms it connects a unity in the fullest

sense; and it is of the nature of a continued geometrical proportion to effect this most perfectly. For

whenever, of three numbers, the middle one between any two that are either solids (cubes?) or squares is


4/10


4

such that, as the first is to it, so is it to the last, and conversely as the last is to the middle, so is the middle

to the first, then since the middle becomes first and last, and again the last and first become middle, in

that way all will necessarily come to play the same part toward one another, and by so doing they will all

make a unity.20

For Hans van der Laan, form is inductively understood by means of measure. Measure leads by

consequence to the sorting of sizes into a system. We begin with the proportional relation of the measures of one

form (eurhythmy), which leads to the relation between different forms (symmetry).

Hans van der Laans primitive hut, or original architecture, is the trilithon(his physical model, image,

and precedent is Stonehenge). For this he quotes Auguste Choisy, One block of stone laid across two blocks

standing upright, behold the original type of monumental construction that humans realized.21Hans van der Laans

original architecture is not a simple shelter born of human necessity that requires further refinement (Vitruvius). Nor

is his original architecture a hypothetical little hut which presents an image of essential architectural elements to

be imitated and monumentalized by all subsequent architecture (Laugier). Hans van der Laan origins are intellectual

tools, derived through inductive observation of nature and presented in a simple construction of three stone-forms

that make up an elementary wall; Hans van der Laan proposes an architecture of wall construction. [See figure 3]

The Origins of Architectonic Space Constructed Walls and the Metaphorical HorizonHans van der Laans architecture exists as wall construction almost to the exclusion of roof/ceiling and

floor/platform. As he states, The essence of architecture consists in the bringing together of limited solid elements

so that limited living spaces can arise between them.22And on another occasion, . . . our space lies not uponthe

earth but betweenwalls.23

God, and for that matter the universe (Gods Creation), is creating, unlimited, and infinite. Infinity operates

in two directions. We can speak of infinite extension, as in the limitlessness of the universe; and we can speak of

infinite division, as in the universe of elements consists of infinite variety, size, and intervals to its parts. Humans, as

creatures within the universe, are created, limited, and finite. Humans create finite instruments to bring measure to

and gauge their universe. Thus, our intelligence requires the finitude of number, unit, and measure to observe,

intellectualize, and subsequently make an artificial world (art) for ourselves within the Creation, modeled after our

understanding of natures innate order.

As Hans van der Laan states,

The primary dyad art-nature flows from the very [constitution] of our being . . . However, the things we

make ourselves and the created things of nature there is not only a complimentary, but also a parallel

relation an analogy . . . Within the primary relation between creator and creature there thus arises asecondary relation between ourselves and the things we make. In this sense art can be said to imitate

nature: the things made by art are related to the limited, created intelligence, created nature to the

unlimited creating intelligence . . . The difference between the things of nature and of art is as great as

that between the intelligences from which they spring: in one case an infinite, creating intelligence, in the

other our own finite, created intellect, incapable of pure creation. Our making is more like re-shaping of

natural things.24

Limit is innate to the human; in fact, our existence is bound to a horizon. We can imagine Gods intellect as

omniscient and everlasting; human intelligence is bound to a single body of experience and the limits of finite time.

Human intellect is analogous to our position on the earth. Standing upright, our eyes see forward, at a distance above

the earths surface. Limited patches of both earth and sky become visible to us. With little exception, our human

existence is limited to the surface (or near the surface) of the earth. As the earth, due to its innate curvature falls

away from our view, a line takes shape, where the earth meets with the dome of the sky, and an observable horizon,or limited boundary, takes place. The horizontal line, circumscribing our view, becomes the scope of human space.

Of course the earth and sky extend beyond the observable horizon, yet our view remains limited.25The

horizon suggests a reality in relation to humanity, a limited reality, and the expression of ourselves in nature. Thus

the metaphysical, the infinite, and the absolute exist in a state of detachment, a hidden beyond that reaches the

sensible. Yet the horizon-bound and finite reality of humanity is penetrated by the infinite. As Hans van der Laan

states,

Our experience-space is necessarily in conflict with the space of nature. The space that nature offers us

rises above the ground and is oriented entirely towards the earths surface. The contrast between the mass


5/10


5

of the earth below and the space of the air above, which meet at the surface of the earth, is the primary

datum of this space On account of their weight all material beings are drawn into this spatial order, and

we live as it were against the earth.

Through intellect and upright stance the human can detach himself [or herself] from this order and relate

to himself [or herself] the piece of space he [or she] needs for action and movement. The human is

conscious of a horizontal orientation centered upon the earth of aspace around him [or her] in the

midst of the space above the earth.

For Hans van der Laan, the primal and unbridgeable difference between the unlimited natural space (the

vertical) and the limited artificial space (the horizontal) is what architecture venerates and reconciles. The stratum

between the horizon-bound against the vertical distance of the sky becomes the backdrop for human activity (and the

subject of human contemplation). He continues, Architecture is born of this original discrepancy between the two

spaces the horizontally oriented space of our experience and the vertically oriented space of nature; it begins when

we add vertical walls to the horizontal surface of the earth.26[See figure 4]

This is Dom. Hans van der Laans metaphor for architecture: Human space is bound to a limited horizontal,

a space that extends to the visible horizon. Our upright posture reveals to us a sensible world that can be reduced to

the coincidence of a vast and extended sky space which meets at a circumscribed horizon with the continuous mass

of the earths surface. Hans van der Laan clearly presents the earth as constituting asurface, to which bodily weight

binds us. Differences in the surface, such as mountains and valleys are dismissed as folds in a surface and not

genuine forms.27

Architecture is always a matter of composing solid elements to make a space for humanity a construction.Solid elements are extracted from the earth and shaped to coincide with a form, having a particularsize, measure

(quantity), andproportion. The shaping of the unlimited qualities of nature to the limited quantities of human

measure is how humans employ their intellect to be included in harmony with nature. It is from the combination of

these forms, extracted not as a whole but in pieces that walls are composed. This vertical construction of architecture

conflicts with the horizon of our experience space; it limits our horizon with the introduction of composed, vertical

elements, walls.28

A single wall is insufficient in order to separate and bound space. When set upon the earth the wall reverts

back to being part of the earths surface. The more vertical the wall, in the form of an upright slab, the more it

distinguishes itself from the surface of the earth. And yet a single wall only bisects space. The introduction of a

second wall, placed at an interval and located parallel and opposite the initial wall, cuts off a piece of space. In this

manner, architectonic space is formed, separated from natural space.

Concinnitasas a ConclusionThe metaphorical relationship between earth (soil/matter), wall (extracted matter/form), and sky (vertical

space) serve togenerateDom Hans van der Laans architecture. From these simple relations architecture is brought

into being. Hans van der Laan attempts to return to the source and rediscover what the ancients learned though

inductive observation of nature and, by contemplation, applied to making architecture. Alberti has a term for this

understanding of the imitative origins of architecture, concinnitas; which means the perfect and rhapsodic relation of

parts within a body such as is found in nature. As Alberti states, Beauty is a form of sympathy and consonance of

the parts within a body, according to definite number, outline, and position, as dictated by concinnitas, the absolute

and fundamental rule in Nature. This is the main object of the art of building, and the source of her dignity, charm,

authority, and worth.29

Alberti and Laugier alternately suggest that the principles of architecture should be derived inductively

from nature; both take such comments for granted and forego elaboration. As Laugier suggests, It is the same with

architecture as with all the other arts: its principles are founded on nature itself, and in the processes of nature are

found to be clearly indicated all the rules of architecture.30

Alberti writes inBook Nineof On the Art of Buildingconcerning concinnitas:

All that has been said our ancestors learned through observation of Nature herself; so they had no doubt

that if they neglected these things, they would be unable to attain all that contributes to the praise and

honor of the work; not without reason they declared that Nature, as the perfect generator of forms, should

be their model. And so, with the utmost industry, they searched out the rules that she employed in

producing things, and translated them into methods of building.31


6/10


6

Thus the basic rules for building extend, in an imitative manner, from observation of Nature. As Alberti

claims of all Arts we begot by Chance and Observation, and nursed by Use and Experience, and improved and

perfected by Reason and Study.32According to Hans van der Laan, the relationship between induction (which he

likens to inspiration) and deduction (which he likens to expiration) is like that of observation and making. He places

emphasis, not on spontaneity (an action without context), but on a deep observational consideration of nature.

Essentially, Hans van der Laans method, when it concerns making, develops by trial and error, an active making

that is measured in relation our capacity to observe and measure the result.

And finally, about concinnitas: Francesco Giorgis regard for harmonious proportions led him to explain

how rules and consonances fit together in mysterious harmony by a relation between God, divine number,

proportion, and observation of patterns within the visible universe. He cites Gods instructions to Moses concerning

the form and proportion of the tabernacle which had to be built, He gave him as model the fabric of the world . . .

(Exodus 25). Thus for Giorgi, music, building, body, nature, God, and number form a harmonic unity.33From

observation of nature, and humble observation of Gods creation, ordercan be discerned by the human intellect and

fashioned by the hands. Though our horizon is limited, we can stretch our bounded insights and peer into the face of

infinity.

Endnotes

1Richard Padovan,Dom Hans van der Laan: Modern Primitive(Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura Press, 1994)

28

2The recurrent theme of beginningsin the words, transcriptions, and writings of Louis I. Kahn begs comparison

with Hans van der Laans interest in origins. Kahn states, I love beginnings. I marvel at beginnings. (Louis I.

Kahn, What Will Be Always Has Been: The Words of Louis I. Kahn, edited by Saul Wurman (New York: Access

Press Ltd. 1986) 150). Beginnings are perennial; they hearken back to origins but are a matter of renewal. The

recurrence of beginnings is an act of conscious imitation, an eternal confirmation. The beginning of architecture

for Kahn is the discovery of the nature of a space where it is good for a certain human activity. Thus, the room and

its inspiration, in concinnity, become the beginning of architecture. Later, in Kahns mature statement on

architecture, he seems to leave the adoration of beginnings and attempts construe a mythic origin, or fundamental

inspiration to all making. In the end, Hans van der Laan and Louis Kahn are not so distinct both link the making of

architecture back to the coming into being of all that exists. Kahn is interested in what precedes a things coming

into being what precedes a things creation. Kahn speaks of a threshold between silence and light. Kahn

characterizessilenceas what precedes light(or aura); it is non-material and unmeasurable, the aura of joy, the

desire to be(that precedes being), and what precedes and then becomes the verb to express. Light, for Kahn, is thegiver of presences (all material is spent light, according to Kahn); the natural materials from which all things are

made (and therefore measurable).

3Compare the Christian belief to Platos Timaeus, where the first causes which brought forth the visible universe are

shown; Platos demiurge desired, that all things should be good and, so far as might be, nothing imperfect, the god

took over all that is visible, not at rest, but in discordant and unordered motion and brought it from disorder into

order, since he judged that order was in every way the better. Platos Timaeus continues to explain the motive of

creation as the product of a great, deductive intelligence. Plato concluded than that the supreme good of the visible

universe, the divine persona that fashioned reason within soul and soul within body, made the work naturally as

excellent and perfect as possible. See Platos Timaeus, translated by Francis M. Cornford (New York: The Liberal

Arts Press Inc., 1959) 19

4

Paraphrased from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Section Two: The Profession of the Christian Faith(prepared after the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, published 1992); available on the World Wide Web

[http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc/index.htm]

5Colossians 1:15;Revised Standard Version of the Bible; text from the University of Virginias Electronic Text

Center [http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html]

6The Wisdom of Solomon 7:17-22;Revised Standard Version of the Bible part of the Apocrypha (meaning

hidden) included in Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles. The authority of the apocryphal books was

challenged during the Reformation, and eventually their inclusion in Protestant Bibles was ceased. The entire


7/10


7

Chapter 7 of The Wisdom of Solomon (7:1-30) is worthy of perusal, for believer and non-believer alike, if just for

the concise beauty of its prose. Text from the University of Virginias Electronic Text Center

[http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html]

7Both citations in this paragraph are from Hans van der Laan, Strumenti di Ordine:Instruments of Order,

Casabella: Monthly Magazine, Number 633, April 1996 (Milano: Elemond Spa, 1996) 71

8Hans van der Laan,Architectonic Space, translated by Richard Padovan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983) 1; and Sirach

29:21-28; ;Revised Standard Version of the Bible(Apocrypha); text from the University of Virginias Electronic

Text Center [http://etext.virginia.edu/rsv.browse.html]

9Hans van der Laan,Architectonic Space, translated by Richard Padovan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983) 2

10Hans van der Laan, Strumenti di Ordine:Instruments of Order, Casabella: Monthly Magazine, Number 633,

April 1996 (Milano: Elemond Spa, 1996) 71

11Ibidem, 71

12Joseph Rykwert, On Adams House in Paradise(New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1972) 110

13Vitruvius, The Ten Books on Architecture, translated by Morris Morgan (New York: Dover Publications, 1960) 41

14John Summerson, The Classical Language of Architecture(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1963) 35-36

15All citations of Laugier extracted from, Joseph Rykwerts On Adams House in Paradise(New York: Museum of

Modern Art, 1972) 44; I prefer this particular translation, which I assume to be Rykwerts own as derived from the

original text published in 1753. For full comprehension and comparison, I did consult an English translation of the

original text, which I cite here: Marc-Antoine Laugier,An Essay on Architecture, translated by Wolfgang and Anni

Herrmann (Los Angeles: Hennessy & Ingalls Inc., 1977) 11-12

16Hans van der Laan Strumenti di Ordine:Instruments of Order, Casabella: Monthly Magazine, Number 633,

April 1996 (Milano: Elemond Spa, 1996) 76

17Ibidem, 72

18Hans van der Laan,Architectonic Space, translated by Richard Padovan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983) 7; this also

relates to the simple dyad (two things, joined as opposites that together form a unity) supposed by Lucretius inBook

One, On the Nature of Things: De Rerum Natura(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982) lines 146-482, as the

distinction between body (or substance) and void (without which substance could not move). Platos Timeaus

distinguishes the nature of the universe in threeparts: forms, of which all sensible things are simulacra, the sensible

things themselves, and the third thing, which is the better stating point, the receptacle or matrix within which

sensible things exist (space); the nurse of all Becoming. Interestingly, Hans van der Laan considers only

observabledyads while deriving his system, such as: of continuous surface-discrete form, inside-outside, solid-void,

and art-nature. His book doesnt address a metaphysical realmor a speculative third condition. He remains rooted

in the observable aspects brought forth by what he sees of Gods Creation; in some ways, this closely allies him with

the Epicureans. He sticks with induction and foregoes speculation. Hans van der Laan humbly considers the intellectas sustained by continuous contact with the observable world (a breathing in) that precedes and remains more vital

than speculation (or a deductive breathing out). Thus architecture exists as a metaphor, though imitation of the

natural Creation. See Chapter 3 of Richard PadovansDom Hans van der Laan: Modern Primitive(Amsterdam:

Architectura & Natura Press, 1994)

19Sverre Fehn, Sverre Fehn: The Poetry of the Straight Line(Helsinki: The Museum of Finnish Architecture, 1992).

The coincidence between H. van der Laan and S. Fehn as seen in this quotation is so great that I cannot imagine at

least oneof the two being aware of the others work. Sverre Fehn is an architect and teacher whose skills in both

areas demands respect (he was recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1997). He is an architectural


8/10


8

mythmaker, storyteller, and creator of instructive poetry in the tradition of Louis Kahn. It would be doubtful that

Sverre Fehn would be unaware of the work of Hans van der Laan or the influence of the Bossche School of

architects. If one reads Fehns writings or transcripts of his discussions, the persona that emerges is a thinker who

collects (or scavenges) threads of meaning and poetry about architecture and construction. He reconnects and

weaves together these threads into a personal tapestry of architectural myth.

20Plato, Timaeus, translated by Francis M. Cornford (New York: The Liberal Arts Press Inc., 1959) 21

21Authors translation from the French, which reads, Une pierre a plat sur duex pierres debout, viola le premire

type dune construction monumentale que lhomme ait realisee. Taken from Hans van der Laans essay Strumenti

di Ordine:Instruments of Order, Casabella: Monthly Magazine, Number 633, April 1996 (Milano: Elemond Spa,

1996) 74

22Ibidem, 71

23Hans van der Laan,Architectonic Space, translated by Richard Padovan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983) 5

24Ibidem, 173-174

25An excellent essay concerning the horizon is Cornelius van Peursens essay The Horizon fromHusserl:Expositions and Appraisals, edited by F. A. Elliston and P. Mc Cormick (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

Press, 1977) 182-201; it is a grand example of phenomenological method.

26This and the above quote from Hans van der Laan,Architectonic Space, translated by Richard Padovan (Leiden:

E. J. Brill, 1983) 5

27Ibidem, 6

28Basic to this countering of the horizon with the vertical of human construction is a reference to Jacobs dream at

Bethel (Genesis 28). Jacob takes a stone of the place and uses it as a pillow. He awakes from a holy dream where he

envisions angels ascending and descending a great ladder connecting earth and heaven; in the dream God speaks to

Jacob. When he awakes he venerates the place where he slept. He takes the stone which he used as a pillow and sets

it upright and pours oil on the top of it. Jacob called the place Bethel, meaning The house of God. Hans van derLaan refers to this passage from Genesis, but not in this context (in Instruments of Order). I was compelled to

connect this passage to Hans van der Laans and demonstrate its connection to Mircea Eliade use in his book The

Sacred and the Profane, where Eliade distinguishes between homogenous space and heirophany. In Eliades case,

Jacobs stone distinguishes space, forming an irruption of the sacred and separating a space from its surrounds.

Jacobs stone marks an occurrence of the sacred. It is not clear to me how Hans van der Laan perceivesspace. Is his

view commiserate with Plato, that space has no qualities of its own, remaining characterless, until it receives

qualities as granted from things visible (geometrical space)? Or are his views with Eliade, and that space has sacred

and profane distinctions, epiphaniesthat require a special form of consecration (religious space)? Humans withdraw

space (inside) from natural space (outside) by means of the construction of walls, and in this way, confound the

homogeneity of space. As well, the construction of the wall by means of human intellect and action is imitative of

Gods Creation. Thus two spaces exist in conflict; but thesacralnature of one over and above the other is unclear.

In his lessons, Hans van der Laan provides us with the dyadic image of the bubble and the water drop, which oppose

emptiness with fullness in alternation. Thus each analogy counters the other. To my mind, Hans van der Laanremains mute on this point concerning qualitative distinctions of space.

29Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert

Tavernor (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988) 303; also consult this texts very helpful glossary, where concinnitasis

described, along with a bibliography. Contemporary use of the term concinnity[ad. L. concinnitas, -tat-em, f.

concinn-usskilfully put together, well-adjusted] means: skillful and harmonious adaptation or fitting together of

parts; harmony, congruity, consistency -- from the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1989)


9/10


9

30First found in Richard Padovans essay Laugier to van der LaanArchitectural Design 49, n. 12 (London: St.

Martins Press, 1979) 324

31Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert

Tavernor (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988) 303

32Ibidem, 157

33Francesco Giorgi, Memorandum for S. Francesco della Vigna, (Promemoria per San Francesco della Vigna

[1535]) fromAppendix Iof Rudolf WittkowersArchitectural Principles in the Age of Humanism(New York: W.

W. Norton & Company Inc., 1971) 155-157. Giorgi, was a Venetian scholar/monk, born 1466 and author ofDe

Harmonia Mundi Totius(Venice, 1525). In hisDe Harmonia Mundi Totius, he declares the Cabbala (mystical

interpretation of the Old Testament) and Pythagoreanism to be parallel systems. A more fundamental example of the

order and harmony that exists within the diversity of things, and the discoverable relationships between them is Sir

Thomas Brownes The Gardens of Cyrus; or The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients,

Artificially, Naturally, and Mystically Considered(originally published 1658); from The Works of Sir Thomas

Browne, Volume II (London: George Bell and Sons, 1883)


10/10


10

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

figure 4

Hans Vander La An

Documents

Transcript of Hans Vander La An