From wooden blocks to Scottish Tartans

Abstract

On 23 November 1968, the Dutch architect and Benedictine monk Dom Hans Van der Laan (1904–1991) unfolded an 18th-century piece of fabric: the Douglas Tartan, as a tool to explain the mechanisms of architecture and urbanism to his students. Van der Laan by the 1960 s was a known figure within Catholic architectural circles, taking his Benedictine background as a foundation to develop philosophical concepts of architectonic space, combining these with a design methodology and a proportional system, as well as an austere and elementary architecture. The chapter develops a reading of the Scottish Tartan by analysing why it was introduced and how it was used as a pedagogical tool. By tracing Van der Laan’s words in the classroom via a broad series of sources such as letters, lecture notes, and publications, it unfolds the role of the Scottish Tartan as a tool to integrate rational ordering principles with a modern conception of space, one undergirded by sensitivity and empathy.