Archives
Het Nieuwe Instituut manages 600 archives and collections of Dutch architects, urban planners, professional associations and educational institutions, comprising a total of some 4,000,000 documents. The collection is the largest in the Netherlands, after that of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, and is one of the largest architecture related collections in the world. Besides museum quality drawings, these archives include sketches, preliminary designs, working drawings, business and personal correspondence, photographs, models, posters, press clippings and published articles. The collection offers insight into 130 years of development within Dutch architecture and urbanism. The uniqueness of many archives, their artistic quality and the added value of the complete collection give the archives of Het Nieuwe Instituut their great cultural and historical significance. The archive of so-called 'born digital' material is growing rapidly and currently contains approximately 60,000 files. This shift is one of the reasons for our increased investment in digitalisation, both in time and funding terms. One of the key outcomes is a new search portal, which provides access to the largest digital architecture archive and contains more than 140,000 images.
With the establishment of the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst (Society for the Promotion of Architecture) in the mid-19th century, the education of architects in the modern sense started taking shape. From that moment onwards, architectural archives were established. The archives of the firm P.J.H. Cuypers and his son J.Th. Cuypers, are prominent 19th century components of the collection of Het Nieuwe Instituut. The main bulk of the collection is from the period 1900 to 1940, and includes the archives of H.P. Berlage, K.P.C. de Bazel, W. Kromhout, M. de Klerk, J.J.P. Oud, W.M. Dudok, J. Duiker, J.A. Brinkman and L.C. van der Vlugt, T. van Doesburg, H. Th. Wijdeveld, G. Th. Rietveld and C. van Eesteren. Another important archive from the same period is that of the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects (BNA). The post-war reconstruction period (1940-1965) is well-represented by the archives of J.H. van den Broek and J.B. Bakema, H. Maaskant, and W. Wissing. More recent archives include those of Herman Hertzberger, Sjoerd Soeters and Albers en Van Huut.