Dom Hans van der Laan's architetonic space as a contemporary interpretation of 'connaissance poetique' within sacred architecture

Abstract

In this work the relevance of the architectural space of Van der Laan for the s. XXI.
Most writings on Van der Laan are based on his three main publications or accomplishments. This research is based on primary sources, such as unpublished letters, design sketches and lectures. By this means, the underlying motives and interconnections between the Benedictine background of Van der Laan and the theory of architecture can be revealed.
From his Catholic and Benedictine formation, which in the case of Van der Laan was strongly deployed around the act of doing, he developed a universal philosophical construction of the archetypal space: Architectonic Space. The analysis for this paper focuses on its objective of making space intelligible (sacred), where the system of proportions is seen only as part of a process of knowledge that balances the senses and the intellect.
The concepts Van der Laan focused on were radically different from the current modern trend and the traditionalist tendencies followed by his contemporaries. Our goal is to go beyond the considerations of the twentieth century of structure and function, to go back to the thought of the late nineteenth century on the surface and ornamentation, which gave rise to the phenomenology of space. Other spatial concepts, which do not point to a radical break, but based on the concepts of surface and ornamentation, were also at stake. Architectonic Space incorporates several interpretations of these spatial concepts that were rethought, namely: the incorporation of the experience of the subject together with the perception, the movement of the mass in space; the rethinking of the surface and the ornamentation, the incorporation of time and movement in space, the materiality of the architecture, or its physical appearance. These topics are considered relevant in the theory of contemporary architecture, with the aim of understanding the work of architects such as Peter Zumthor, Herzog and de Meuron or SANAA.
In this sense, Van der Laan can be seen as a key figure to link nineteenth-century thinking about space and contemporary architecture. From this point of view, Architectonic Space formulates important elements to redefine the religious space.