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Amsterdam Archives in De Bazel building (detail). Photo: Doriann Kransberg. © Stadsarchief Amsterdam.
The NAI looks after some 800 archives of architects, firms of architects, organisations and associations. However, there are other institutes that curate architecture, urban development and spatial planning archives. A list of these institutes will point the way to a number of important collections outside the NAI.
Private archives
The NAI maintains architecture archives for the national government, which actually owns them but has the NAI curate and exhibit them and make them available. These are private archives, many of which have come from architects’ bequests. Private archives are archives formed by associations, foundations, companies, partnerships, educational institutes, families and individuals, for example. Although the NAI works for the national government, it is not a government archive.
Government archives
Government archives are archives that have to be kept in accordance with the Archives Act. Data of social, cultural-historical or political importance is moved to public archive storage facilities after a maximum of twenty years. Archives maintained by the central government, for example, are moved to the National Archive in The Hague. Archives of other national and provincial governments go to one of the Regional Historical Centres in the provinces. Municipal councils and water boards also have their own archive storage facilities. Some – larger – municipal councils have their own archive department (municipal archives) or a joint department for the local or regional archive. Apart from government archives, archive departments also keep private archives.
Many storage facilities
This means that archives relevant to research of the built area are kept at a great many different locations. For example, the archives of ministries such as Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM) are stored at the National Archive, as are the archives of the Government Buildings Agency. Archives of municipal departments such as the Housing Inspectorate, Urban Development or Public Works are kept in Municipal Archives. Private architect archives are kept at a wide variety of locations.
Consultation
The list of institutes that keep archives and architect archives that you can consult here is the result of knowledge of architecture archives built up by the NAI, during acquisition or inventory work, for example, or arising from information questions in the reading room. It is not based on any systematic research and is, therefore, by no means an exhaustive overview.
The collection of photographs from the archive of Johan Niegeman
(1902-1977) tells its own
story: of freezing
temperatures, hardship and idealism.
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A recent acquisition is the correspondence between J.H. (Jan) and J.H.W. (Willem) Leliman: almost two hundred letters and cards. What is remarkable is the number of letters of a personal nature in the collection.
> Read more...
Lecture/Debat/symposium
24
may
2011
20:00
|
In their lectures the Belgian philosopher Lieven De Cauter and the Belgian urban designer Michiel Dehaene explored the concept of heterotopia – a term that literally means 'other place' – and its significance for contemporary urban theory. Dehaene and De Cauter rethought the idea of heterotopia in relation to today's world of museums, theme parks, malls, tourist resorts, gated communities and other forms of built environment. Moderated by Vedran Mimica.
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The design of the Afrikaanderplein demonstrates the strengths of the open plan process. By making residents part of the square’s transformation process, it has become a place for all kinds of groups to relax and have fun without getting under each other’s feet.
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