Gibbs Professor Publishes Book on Hans van der Laan’s Architectural Philosophy

OU Architecture and Interior Design Professor Tiziana Proietti recently announced the release of her new book, “Hans van der Laan’s Instruments of Thought: Proportion, Architecture, Analogy,” co-authored with Kees den Biesen.

Proietti and Den Biesen explore the work of Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Hans van der Laan (1904-1991), offering important insights into how artifacts address the complexity of human physical, cognitive, and social needs. They introduce three powerful lines of thought developed by van der Laan: the search for a theory of architecture, the establishment of a three-dimensional system of proportions named Plastic Number, and analogy as the mainspring of human thinking.

This triad of interconnected intellectual strategies represents van der Laan’s most important ‘instruments of thought’ and is rooted in careful observation of phenomena rather than conventional beliefs. The book urges readers to reconsider the origins of human creation and examine our perceptual and cognitive responses to the environment.

Proietti, who holds joint appointments in the Divisions of Architecture and Interior Design at OU, is also the director of the Sense Base Laboratory. This research hub aims to bridge neuroscience and architecture, testing human responses to architectural proportion.

The book’s principal aim is to be formative, developing a methodology to explore the Plastic Number theory and the many ways in which we perceive and interpret proportion. It reintroduces playful creativity and intellectual exploration into architectural pedagogy and design practice, serving as a gateway for a deeper understanding of how the built environment affects human behavior and how the human mind perceives and decodes artifacts.

Hans van der Laan’s Instruments of Thought is available for purchase on Routledge’s website.