Nieuwe Instituut as Heritage Institution Nieuwe Instituut as Heritage Institution

Nieuwe Instituut manages the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning. The collection contains some 700 archives of Dutch designers, dating from 1850 onwards. As well as museum-quality drawings, they contain sketches and working drawings, correspondence, photographs, models, posters and clippings. Based on these archives, the collection provides insight into 130 years of developments in Dutch architecture and urban planning.

The search portal gives the public direct online access to one of the world’s largest architecture collections. The State Archive for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning contains 1.4 million drawings; 300,000 photographs; 2,500 models and 70,000 books and magazines, which together document the history of Dutch architecture and urbanism.

The Research Centre is a space where research, meeting, inspiration, cooperation and exchanging knowledge are central. Drawing around 3000 (inter)national researchers per year, it is pre-eminently a place for the generation of new knowledge. Visitors can consult archive documents and read books and magazines about art, architecture, urban planning and design. In addition, there are often small thematic exhibitions featuring items from the (library) collection. Visitors are welcome to meet, catch up and work together.

Sonneveld House is a museum house and one of the best-preserved homes in the functionalist Nieuwe Bouwen style. The villa on the edge of the Museum Park was designed in the early 1930s by the architecture office Brinkman en Van der Vlugt, known for the Van Nelle factory and the Feyenoord stadium. Sonneveld House shows how a prominent Rotterdam family embraced Modernism, and how that choice coloured their daily living environment.

The Jaap Bakema Study Centre is a collaboration between the Nieuwe Instituut and the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft. It initiates research projects that aim to open up the National Collection and which result in exhibitions, publications and public events. The Jaap Bakema Study Centre combines current social issues with historical-theoretical research in the fields of design, culture and society.

This six-year Nieuwe Instituut programme is aimed at making the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning more visible and more sustainably accessible. The programme was made possible by a one-off investment from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). The resulting knowledge and the products realised are shared with the heritage sector and applied in our own organisation.

The Network Archives Design and Digital Culture (NADD) is a partnership of heritage institutions, including Het Nieuwe Instituut, knowledge and research organisations, and individual archive holders, aimed at preserving Dutch design heritage. What can we learn by archiving these domains through decentralised structures?

The Collecting Otherwise research project looks at the National Collection and the practice of collecting and archiving from a perspective that is in line with current social changes. In 2021 we investigated intersectional feminist and queer spatial practices, and in 2022 the relationship between the architecture collection and colonial history took centre stage. This year we are focusing on developing new ways to acquire, classify and present heritage.

With the Memory of the Designed Landscape programme, we are working on a future-proof perspective on the archiving of garden and landscape design. This is motivated by the lack of a clear repository for the archives that document its history. How do we store this material, and how do we keep it accessible?