Het Nieuwe Instituut derives its special position to a significant degree from the range and unique importance of the State Archive for Architecture and Urban Planning, which it manages. The collection has a central place in the institute’s research and exhibitions programmes. In this respect the archive has an increasingly organic connection with Het Nieuwe Instituut’s function as Museum for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture and the central role that Research & Development plays in generating the content of the institute’s programming.

At the end of the 1990s, an inventory was taken of all the photographic material hidden in the collection of what was then the Netherlands Architecture Institute, today Het Nieuwe Instituut. The photographs were used by architects for publications, education and lectures, and were sometimes the bearers of new trends and ideologies. Drawing together prints and negatives from the different photographic archives allowed new insights into their historical and documentary value to emerge.

The State Archive is not only a research collection but is, itself, a subject of research. The archive really only comes to life when the accumulated materials are studied, interpreted and shared, thus creating new ideas, meanings and stories. Reflecting on the impact of the digital archive in relation to the paper archive plays a central role in this.