Architects L. and J.A. van der Laan, 1921-1942 By 1921, father Leo van der Laan had associated himself with his eldest son Johannus Antonius (Jan) van der Laan (1896-1966). During his studies in Delft, H.J. Evers (1855-1929) was a leading figure. From him he adopted the design order: first the floor plan, then the sections and finally the facades. Jan received the degree in structural engineering cum laude in 1921 from his professor M.J. Granpré Molière (1883-1972) with a grade of 10 for architecture. One of the first works he built with his father was the St. Joseph Church on the Herensingel in Leiden. The church De Goede Herder in Wassenaar was built a few years later, in 1924, and shows an interior, as was then considered desirable for a Catholic church. The 1954 Pius X Church in Slotervaart (Amsterdam) reflects the new view of a large undivided space. Leo and Jan received commissions in Leiden primarily from Catholic clients until the early 1930s. Jan gained his national fame with a winning competition design in 1938 for the construction of a new city hall for the municipality of Eindhoven. Van der Laan was a traditionalist, but maintained himself within emerging modernism. He impressed with his skill as a draftsman and the purity of his architecture. He was known for his sense of proportion - the grouping of masses and distribution of window sections - in the connections between openings and wall dams. The social was of great importance within his architecture. With his brother Johannes Theodore (Hans) van der Laan (1904-1991), Jan discussed architecture a lot. Both had a very strong sense of proportion, but went their own way. Hans had joined the order of St. Benedict in 1929 and had developed into a true thinker. He stayed in the monastery at Oosterhout and in 1968 moved to the monastery of St. Benedictusberg in Lemiers, for which he himself had designed the abbey church. Hans wrote about the doctrine of plastic number, a doctrine by which he wanted to bring architecture to a higher order through proper measures and proportions. Together with brother Nicolaas (Nico) van der Laan (1908-1986), Hans taught the course on "church architecture" in 's-Hertogenbosch from 1945 to 1973 and built in the style of the Bossche School he developed. Nico van der Laan was based in Den Bosch as an architect. Led by Granpré Molière, the three brothers, together with several other students from Delft, had sought 'guidelines for an architecture that would bear witness not only to human dignity, but also somewhat to divine majesty'. Starting in 1932, they withdrew annually at Easter to contemplate architecture. In 1952, Granpré and Jan van der Laan took the initiative to establish the Priests' Circle: meetings for architects who were busy designing churches in the diocese of Haarlem. Jan van der Laan had joined the architectural club Kwing-Kwang-Kwepele during his student days. This club had been founded in 1918 by fellow students and students from Delft. The association was also their main bond, as they all designed in their own style. During the month of May, they met, always in a different place, to be together and to see each other's work, either in real life or on a drawing. J.A. van der Laan and successive offices, 1942-1985 After the death of his father in 1942, Jan van der Laan continued the firm in Leiden. The war did not reduce the number of assignments for Jan. During the occupation, he worked as a consultant for various municipalities regarding the reconstruction of these cities. After the war he took care of the urban development plans for, for example, Arnhem and Eindhoven. Jan started doing more and more work in the urban planning field. Around 1950 he provided the urban plan for the medical faculty of the University of Nijmegen, for which institution he also designed several buildings. In 1956 he received the Charles Quint Prize from the City of Nijmegen for his work on the medical faculty. Jan van der Laan was appointed Commandeur in de Orde van de H. Gregorius de Grote and in 1955 was honored as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Together with architect Jos. Bedaux, he received the Van Lanschot Prize from the municipality of Tilburg for the design of the Katholieke Economische Hogeschool in Tilburg. The first collaboration with Th.M. van der Eerden dates from 1949. In 1952, the pair joined forces with J.B. Hermans, resulting in the firm Van der Laan, Hermans and Van Eerden. In 1957, the firm name was expanded to include the name of J.H.M. Kirch: Van der Laan, Hermans, Van der Eerden and Kirch. Kirch, incidentally, had taken the course in "church architecture" in 's-Hertogenbosch in the early 1950s (see application number LAAXd7). After Van der Laan's death in 1966, the name of the architectural firm changed to Architectenbureau Kirch, Hermans, Van der Eerden.