Exactly forty years after the publication of *De architectonische ruimte* by the architect and Benedictine monk Hans van der Laan, the architects and professors Thierry Delcommune and Roland Matthu are now also exploring that same space in their book *L’espace Architectonique*.

Architecture operates in the space between the world of objects and that of ideas. It concerns both the art of building and the interaction between the parts of a whole. For each of the three authors mentioned, this blend is a means of restoring balance within the triad of natural, built and human. That is where the similarity ends: whilst Van der Laan seeks to arrive at a general definition of the creation of beauty through a number of measures, Delcommune and Matthutte attempt to understand the origin of the rupture between the anthropological and what they call contemporary hyperspace, and how that rupture might be bridged. Their endeavour takes the form of a richly documented architectural theory (undoubtedly the fruit of their academic careers) expressed in words and drawings.