Description

Surrounded on three sides by woodland, the convent stands on a south-facing and slightly inclined open space. The 66.6 metre long west wing and the 58.4 metre long south wing form a pair joined perpendicularly at the corner; likewise the east and north wings. Together each pair of buildings encloses a trapezoidal courtyard garden. The whitewashed brickwork surfaces of the 50 centimetre thick walls are identical throughout the complex. All the iron-framed windows on the ground floor have the same 3:4 proportions, all the windows on the upper floor 1:1 proportions. Black glazed cap-and-pan roof tiles crown all copings and upper surfaces.

Access to all the rooms is arranged in such a way that the nuns and visitors can go about their day in completely separate environments: the north wing accomodates entrance courtyard and chapel; the east wing sacristy, office, library and workshop; the south wing kitchen and refectory; the west wing guest rooms, lecture hall and museum; the upper storeys of the west and south wings, the nuns’ rooms and guest rooms.

One enters the convent from the north. Except for a door – at a bend in the wall that marks the spot where north and west wings meet – this side of the building is entirely closed. The entrance courtyard directly behind the entrance provides access to the garden courtyard as well as the chapel. However, as if to slow the pace of arriving visitors, the doors are not on axis, but located out of view in the corners.

The position of the altar and tabernacle in the chapel mediates between the longitudinal and circular arrangements. The plan is an octagon – with an edge-length of 5.3 metres – inside a square, only slightly longer than it is wide. The altar is positioned a little east of the centre of the room and arranged in an axis with the tabernacle in a niche in the east wall. The grey pews and knee-rests for the nuns are arranged around three sides, and together with the stations of the liturgy form a circle. The floor is covered with a yellow-brown flagstone. The central octagon projects out of the roof of the square, allowing light in through eight pairs of windows all of the same format. The timber panelling on the ceiling and the pendant lamp shades – both recall traditional kitchens or workshops – give the chapel, despite its brightness, a decidedly domestic atmosphere.

The exceedingly limited palette employed by the architect and Benedictine has one single aim: the unity­ of architecture and the Eucharist as an ensemble of symbols. Church architecture is the continuation of the primitive hut. However, this most supreme and pure form of church architecture, one entirely liberated from function, cannot be achieved through the use of particular building materials, but only through the connection between space and number: through proportion.

De Architect, no. 9/1981, pp. 117- and no. 4/1984, p. 67, p. 69 | Bauwelt, no. 4/2003, p. 35 | Bergeijk, Herman van, Máčel, Otakar: Birkhäuser Architekturführer. Belgien Niederlande Luxemburg. 20. Jahrhundert, Basel 1998, p. 48 | Casabella, no. 634/1996, pp. 56- | Dubois, Marc: Belgio. Architettura, gli ultimi vent’anni, Milan 1993, pp. 80- | Ferlenga, Alberto, Verde, Paola: Dom Hans van der Laan. Works and Words, Amsterdam 2001, pp. 23-, pp. 94- | Laan, Hans van der: Negen brieven van de architect over de bouw van het klooster Roosenberg, unpublished manuscript, Vaals 1975 | Maas, Tom: De eigen wetgeving der architectuur. Doctoraalscriptie over woorden en werken van Dom H. van der Laan en de Bossche School, unpublished manuscript, Delft 1988, p. 8, pp. 90- | Padovan, Richard: Dom Hans van der Laan. Modern Primitive, Amsterdam 1994, pp. 192-, p. 208

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Originally published in: Rudolf Stegers, Sacred Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2008.