Dom hans van der Laan high chair for Town hall Budel 1966

Dom Hans van der Laan

Leiden 1904 – 1991
Dutch Benedictine monk, architect

Rare and amazing high boards room chair designed by Dom Hans van der Laan and executed by Jan de Jong for the Raadhuis Budel, 1962/1966. This chair comes from the town hall where Jan de Jong was the architect for, this town hall was fully decorated with furniture from the Bossche School, also this chair for example. From this chair there were only 12 made, it’s coming from the boards room. The chair has a very nice dark brown/green lacquer finish which is difficult to define and has a very nice patina from age and usage but is still fully original. Some of the furniture from Budel was refinished a but darker at later age. The chair is finished with copper nails and has a black painted solid metal frame. This chair still has its original upholstery in dark green leatherette. The chair was fully designed by the proportions of the ‘Plastic number’ which was designed by Dom Hans van der Laan. The town hall was designed in 1962 and the building started ended in 1966. The town hall still exists but was completely renovated in 1997.

During the reconstruction period after WWII the Dutch architect Jan de Jong and Dom Hans van der Laan collaborated on several architectural projects including the interior furniture. They created an outstanding body of work defining the the style of the Bossche School. Jan de Jong was able to translate many of Dom v.d.Laan’s idealised concepts and ideas into pioneering buildings and spaces. They worked in such close collaboration however that it is difficult to discern the individual level of input into the furniture they designed. The artist Wim van Hoof worked with the two architects proposing different colour schemes for their projects. The original olive green surface visible on these tables derived from one of those schemes.
Provenance: Town hall, Budel 1966