PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1824-1945

Plans and Drawings from the Government Buildings Agency
National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague

On microfiche

The Archive

The collection contains more than 36,000 images of plans, details, photos, technical drawings, artist's impressions, cross-sections, etc. concerning

— palaces
— parliament
— ministries
— courthouses
— prisons
— universities
— schools
— post offices
— customs posts
— hospitals
— orphanages
— museums

This vast amount of material provides historians and practicing architects with abundant sources for a variety of studies, including

— following the work of various Dutch and foreign architects, for example, the architect of the Rijksmuseum P.J.H. Cuypers
— reconstructing the history of specific buildings
— making typologies of various buildings
— tracing the evolution of government building policy
— examining the development of construction techniques and use of materials

Historical background

The Rijksgebouwendienst (RGD) (Government Buildings Agency) was set up in 1922 by Royal decree with the task of adminis- tering government build- ings in the Netherlands. The agency attends to all matters relating to the buildings owned or rented by the state, including their purchase or renting, construction, renovation, maintenance and initial layout and design.

The first Dutch public buildings date back to the counts of Holland in the Middle Ages. As early as the thirteenth century there was a residence on the site where Parliament stands at present in The Hague.

Later in the century a large hall, the Ridderzaal, was added and a chapel and various other buildings were erected.

With the rise of the Dutch Republic and the Stadholders of the House of Orange there was no strict division in The Hague between building done for the Oranges and for the provincial government. Many of the building projects involved work on property of the Orange's such as the palaces Huis ten Bosch and Noordeinde.

In the rest of the country the public buildings were administered by the provincial and local authorities.

The demise of the Republic and advent of the unitary state in 1795 did not have any immediate consequences for public buildings. Local authorities maintained buildings in which civil servants of the central government now worked. In The Hague the Controller or Royal Architect (after the country became a monarchy in 1806) ran the office that looked after the palaces and government buildings. In the course of the nineteenth century the ministries also appointed architects to design and maintain their buildings.

Among the best known were the Metzelaar family, C.H. Peters, J. van Lokhorst and of course P.J.H. Cuypers, the architect of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

With the founding of the RGD in the 1920s the care for almost all government buildings was centralized in the hands of one service under the direction of the Rijksbouwmeester (Chief Government Architect).

Structure of the archive

The archive is divided into two large parts, that of the architect and that of the builder. Within the former there are several subdivisions, including separate collections of photos and specifications.

The material within each section is organized alphabetically by town or place in the Netherlands and is completely inventoried.

The inventory

The inventory by J. Faber provides the name and address of each object in the archive, along with the name of the architect (when known), the number and nature of the items (for example, draft plans, cross-sections, etc.), and the scale and date. The inventory is in Dutch. It is available separately from MMF Publications.

Multilingual terminology lists are also provided for the non-Dutch reader

Inventory available separately
J. Faber, Inventaris van het tekeningenarchief van de Rijksgebouwendienst en rechtsvoorgangers (The Hague: Nationaal Archief, 1992)
Price: € 85

Military architecture also available from MMF

Maps and Drawings of the Netherlands, Part II: Archive of the Corps of Engineers (Genie) Please inquire for details