Disclosing Architecture: 18 Stories of Heritage and InnovationDisclosing Architecture: 18 Stories of Heritage and Innovation

Text Elza van den Berg and Huub Breuer

Nieuwe Instituut manages the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning on behalf of the Dutch government. The architectural drawings of Theo van Doesburg are part of this collection. By managing these works, the Nieuwe Instituut occupies a unique position among Dutch art museums, while the Van Doesburg collection occupies a special place among the hundreds of archives in the National Collection. For Van Doesburg himself, art and architecture were inseparable, but his legacy is spread across several cultural institutions. In 1983, eight years after the death of his widow, Nelly van Doesburg, Wies van Moorsel, Nelly’s niece, who had inherited the entire estate, donated it to the Dutch state, including the studio house in Meudon. The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (successor to the Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst) distributed the collection to various museums and institutions in the Netherlands in order to make the material available to the widest possible audience.

The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), the predecessor of the Nieuwe Instituut, was entrusted with the extensive architecture section, comprising 405 works on paper and 43 photographs from the Van Moorsel donation. Nieuwe Instituut manages a collection of drawings, correspondence, models and photographic material, the context of which is of paramount importance. Their coherence reflects the representation and history of ideas about architecture in the broadest sense. Unlike an art museum, where individual Van Doesburgs are displayed in the gallery as art objects, the Nieuwe Instituut focuses on the design process and makes no distinction between a simple collotype or a colourful gouache. They are all a part of the visualisation of the idea and reflect the design process of the maker. As a founder of De Stijl, Van Doesburg had radical ideas about the merging of disciplines and breaking with tradition. His work lies somewhere between art and architecture. Van Doesburg was not a trained architect; many of his designs were never realised and were sometimes purely theoretical because they could not be realised.

The centenary year of De Stijl in 2017 showed that there is a great and unbroken international interest in De Stijl and Van Doesburg. In collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Nieuwe Instituut put together a unique exhibition, showing works from the National Collection alongside works from the Kunstmuseum. The institute also lent hundreds of works by De Stijl artists to cultural institutions. The Van Doesburg collection is among the top three of the most borrowed works from the National Collection. Van Doesburg is regarded as an exemplary representative of the Dutch avant-garde and its quest for integration between autonomous and more bounded disciplines. Because of the cultural and historical importance of the works, it is essential that the Van Doesburg collection is and remains fully accessible and safe to handle. For this reason, its restoration has been included in a separate restoration process.

In May 2019, Restauratieatelier Nijhoff Asser (RNA) was commissioned to restore and conserve 405 objects from the Theo van Doesburg collection. The 43 photographic prints were included in the photo conservation project of Disclosing Architecture. Important works from Theo van Doesburg’s oeuvre are also preserved in three other sub-collections, namely in the archives of the architects Jan Wils, Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud and Cornelis van Eesteren. These are 39 objects that resulted from close collaboration with Theo van Doesburg. Collaboration was a crucial and distinguishing feature of the De Stijl group of artists, and these are works that make their mutual relationships visible. The Theo van Doesburg collection should therefore not be viewed in isolation, but in this context.

At the start of the project, RNA carried out a damage inventory, in which all 448 objects in the Van Doesburg collection were examined for materiality, actual and foreseeable damage, and technique. Each object was photographed in detail, using raking light, in order to determine the correct treatment. For the first time in the history of these works, the techniques used to create them make have been identified. The collection includes photographic prints, diazotypes, blueprints, pencil and ink drawings, gouaches and combinations of these. On the basis of these results, a classification was made. The first of the ten batches to be sent to the RNA studio in Amsterdam was made up of objects that together represented all the common materials and techniques, so that the restorers could think carefully about the treatment of each type.

The damage inventory report provided a great deal of information about the objects in the Van Doesburg collection, but it also raised many questions. It was a good starting point for various studies and protocols in which the Van Doesburg collection could serve as a guideline for the restoration of other archives. Examples include the preparation of a registration, restoration and loan protocol, and studies on colour, light damage and adhesives.

The first thing that had to be done was to draw up a restoration protocol, setting out the guidelines according to which the RNA would treat the works. This protocol was drawn up by the Nieuwe Instituut in consultation with the RNA. Firstly, it was decided that the works would not be ‘polished’, but that the traces of use would be left as intact as possible, as these provide a great deal of information about the context of the object. Each object in the collection has its own history, the traces of which are visible. A drawing of the Cité de Circulation (DOESAB9175) has suffered water damage caused by condensation from a heating pipe in Meudon and damage caused by mice. Another drawing has exhibition labels on the back (DOESAB5123). These traces, as long as they do not damage the object, have been left visible. Damage also tells us more about the appreciation of the drawings. For example, we know from photographs that the paintings adorned the walls of Meudon, but the marks on the design drawings of the Cité de Circulation tell us that they were in the garage, where mice had access. Many objects have been covered with various types of tape during their existence. As the plastic and glue discolour and degrade the paper, it was impossible to leave them in place. RNA spent a lot of time removing tape, most of which was applied after 1983. In principle, tape and glue can be removed with ethanol and Evolon.

In some cases, in consultation with the Nieuwe Instituut, the protocol was deviated from. Collage AB5109 was probably glued on with starch; it seems very likely that Van Doesburg himself used this glue. RNA asked the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) to carry out a study on glues to determine how damaging they were to the paper. The results were inconclusive, which was reason enough to remove the glue from the work.

There were other exceptions that forced us to deviate from the protocol. For example, the presentation drawings of four university halls (EEST3.166, EEST3.167, EEST3.168 and DOESAB5110), a collaboration between Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren, were attached to an acidified backing board. Using heat and a spatula, the thin tracing paper with flaking gouache was carefully separated from the board. After RNA had applied an intermediate layer, the drawings were remounted so that the materials could not negatively influence each other.

All 444 works are mounted in a portfolio made of museum cardboard, allowing the works to be consulted without touching the object itself. A report was drawn up for each treatment. On the basis of the damage inventory, it was decided not to keep the works framed and to store them without a passepartout in a folder in a drawer or box.

The Van Doesburg collection also played a pioneering role in the registration process. The limited size of the collection made it possible to describe all the objects in detail and to establish links with objects in the National Collection and beyond. Registration issues of importance for the collection as a whole were investigated. For example, the loan history of the works in the Van Doesburg collection was researched, so that we know which works were exhibited when from the moment of their creation. This tells us something about the value that was attributed to them and can explain certain damage.

For example, the collection contains nine works from 1923, belonging to three projects, each with its own colour: Hôtel Particulier in red (EEST3.178, EEST3.179 and EEST3.180), Maison Particulière in blue (DOES028, DOES029 and DOES030) and Maison d’Artiste in yellow (DOESAB5127, DOESAB5128 and DOESAB5129). Research into the loans has shown that most of the coloured borders around these works are original. As a result, the RNA has put a lot of work into conserving these borders, which were in poor condition. In 2023, RNA conservator Jurjen Munk devoted an extensive article to the borders, looking in detail at the material-technical information that such a work provides and what this means for the restoration of such works.

The restoration of Van Doesburg’s work was successfully completed within the project period. The information gathered over the three years was largely processed in the reporting system, but a number of questions still remained unanswered. Certain works in the Van Doesburg collection are among the most requested pieces in the National Collection. However, the frequent display of these works results in damage such as discolouration of the paper or fading of the diazotypes and blueprints. The task of the Nieuwe Instituut is not only to manage the collection, but also to keep it in good condition.

As a result of the Van Doesburg project, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands was asked to carry out a light study. Light, and in particular UV radiation, is very damaging to objects in the collection; frequent exposure leads to fading of images, discolouration or yellowing of the paper. Agnes Brokerhof of the Cultural Heritage Agency has carried out research into the techniques in the collection and how they react to light. On the basis of this research, the institute has drawn up a protocol that specifies exactly which techniques can be exhibited for how long and how long they must remain in storage afterwards. This protocol aims to preserve the objects in the collection for as long as possible. When applying for a loan, it is now possible to determine whether a work can be exhibited and for how long. If a work cannot be loaned, the institute may recommend another work from the collection that has been exposed to light less frequently for display. In this way, the collection is kept in optimum condition for as long as possible. An important discovery of this research is that blueprints, although they discolour quickly in the light, return to their original blue colour after a while in the dark.

A key point in the restoration protocol was that the restorations should be reversible wherever possible. Should the aesthetics of the restoration change over the coming decades, the RNA's restorations can be undone. The damage report revealed that many restorations had been carried out in the past on the top pieces in the collection. The RNA asked the institute what exactly had happened to these works. Archival research revealed that the restoration history of the works had been poorly recorded; no restoration reports were available. RNA has meticulously recorded its work in reports and with photographs. All of this was digitally recorded at the Nieuwe Instituut, so that future restorers will not have to face the same problem.

The RNA has been able to reverse many older, damaging restorations, but the institute has often been asked whether a part of an object is original or historically important before deciding whether it should be preserved. Think of the aforementioned borders of the 1923 drawings of the Hôtel Particulier, Maison Particulière and Maison d’Artiste. In this restoration project, the history of the objects was taken into account much more than before. This was due to the fact that that the Van Doesburg collection was treated as a whole rather than as individual works.

During the project, there was an active exchange of knowledge with various art museums that also own works by Van Doesburg, such as MoMA, the Fondation Custodia, the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Strasbourg,. It is worth noting that these museums treat their pieces as works of art and have followed with great interest RNA how has restored the objects in the Nieuwe Instituut’s collection. This collaboration has led to an enrichment of the knowledge and techniques used, which has ultimately contributed to the preservation and appreciation of the Van Doesburg collection.