Arquitectura e interiorismo: Dom Hans Van Der Laan

Source: Jeorren Verrecht
Photography: Jeorren Verrecht

Saint Benedict Abbey is a Benedictine monastery established in 1922 in Mamelis, close to Vaals, in the Netherlands. Their most famous buildings are designed by monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan (1904-1991). He holds a prominent position in 20th century religious architecture. With a modest built oeuvre in The Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden, he is one of the exceptional architects that made a fundamental contribution to church building. He developed his ideas on architecture through several publications and books. His masterpiece irrefutably is the abbey near Vaals, the place where he spent most of his life and where he was buried.

He was a leading figure in the Bossche School. Van der Laan designed only a few buildings, mostly Christian, not all of which were realised. The church of St. Benedictusberg Abbey (1967) at Mamelis (near Vaals) is his best-known executed work. His design for the library of the same monastery was awarded the Limburg Architecture Prize in 1989. The crypt, the sacristy and a courtyard or atrium there were also designed by him. The rest of the premises date from the 1920s and are not by him.