Edmund Fowles' inspiration: Roosenberg Abbey, Flanders

摘要

I first visited Roosenberg Abbey while leading a design studio at the Cass in 2017. The studio’s agenda that year was focussed oneducation design. Some of the most enduring education buildings, early universities, emerged from the building form of Cisterianmonasteries with their interconnecting quadrangles defining a strong spatial logic for the organisation of rooms. We were drawnto the work of the 20th century Dutch Benedictine monk and architect Dom Hans van der Laan, and his implementation of ideals ofproportion and of monastic architecture as a basis for education space.