Netherlands Architecture Institute - The Collection

The Collection

Private individuals started collecting architectural archives as early as the end of the nineteenth century. One of these was the Architecture Museum Foundation (SAM). In the 1970s, the government became interested in these archives, setting up the Netherlands Architecture Documentation Centre (NDB) as part of the Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, the Netherlands Department for Conservation. When the archives were transferred to the NDB, they officially became state property. The NAI’s archive collection is still a national collection.

The libraries of the Academie van Bouwkunst Amsterdam (Amsterdam Academy of Architecture), the Bond van Nederlandse Architecten BNA (the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects) and Stichting Wonen, a consumer organisation for information on sustainable living, were added to the NDB’s collection. The collection now houses some 18 kilometres of archive material. It also contains over 500 archives and collections of Dutch architects, organisations and educational institutes in the field of architecture and urban development, and comprises drawings, sketches, models, documentation, correspondence and photos. The internationally focused library contains about 60,000 volumes.

The NAI houses the Stichting BONAS foundation, (Stichting Bibliografieën en Oeuvrelijsten Nederlandse Architecten en Stedebouwkundigen, which translates as Bibliographies and Lists of Works of Dutch Architects and Urban Designers). Working on the basis of archive and literature study, this organisation reconstructs the work of Dutch designers from 1790 to the present and publishes it in book form.

• G.F. La Croix

• J.F. Staal

• J.M.L. Lauweriks

• Portrait of C. van Eesteren and Th. van Doesburg