A Church in The Netherlands

A Walk through the Abbey

“In our contact with nature we constantly need in-between forms as houses and vessels, clothes and footwear. The ground is too hard and rough for our bare feet and we make ourselves sandals. They are of a softer material than the ground, but firmer than our feet. Through the intervention of such soles the resemblance, the harmony between our foot and the ground is achieved.

With the house, it is not about the foot and the ground but about the whole human body and the whole natural environment. The means through which the harmony between them arises, is the artificially separated space. This mere physical function of the house extends from the fitting of a stone in the wall to the fitting of the whole house around the human being that dwells in it. It is a continuous chain of relations of which the human being forms the end.”

Dom Hans van der Laan, Architectonic Space (AS)

"The function of the house is complete only when the entire architectonic space, from cell to domain, comes under the influence of architectonic form, and both space and form are governed by the architectonic ordering of quantity."
(VDL AS XI.1)

“The space-cell and the gallery, whose spaces derive their form directly from that of the wall, present us only with the smallest form of architectonic space, a spatial yardstick, from which the size of the fully-developed house is derived. (VDL AS XII.11)”

“Between the extreme terms of the housing process – man and nature – two intermediate terms are present: first the building materials extracted from the earth, and secondly the house, the technical ensemble into which these materials are integrated.”

(VDL AS I.2)

“Architecture is born of the original discrepancy between 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. (VDL AS I.5)”

"I therefore rely on a willingness to sacrifice lower concerns for higher ones, such as must so frequently be the case in spiritual life. And that higher concern is above all the great unity of furniture and space, and the peace that this communicates to the mind and spirit. We constantly considered this kind of furniture in relation to the space in which it stands and which it completes, and in such a way that we consistently matched its colours to those of the space. Mr van Hooff coloured this furniture, as it were, using the shadow tones of the walls, as was done for the doors in your house."
(VDL, 9 letters)

“It is extremely difficult to adapt furniture that comes into direct contact with the body, and in which comfort, especially today, plays such an important role, to an architecture, whose spiritual value takes such precedence. It will be necessary to somewhat radically alter the everyday use of tables, and especially chairs, in order for these pieces of furniture, in their articulation and proportion, to speak the language of the architecture as well. Had you attached too great a value to existing customs and to the mere comfort of modern furniture, it would not have been possible for us to maintain the great unity of the building down to the details of the furniture. (VDL, 9 letters)”

"In nature all within an irretraceable variety and multiplicity, and yet with great unity and harmony. It is to the glory of God when we replicate this in our own way, within the limitations of our human intellect. The more straightforward we do this, the better we can attain that same unity and harmony."
(VDL, 9 letters)