Netherlands Architecture Institute NAI (1993 - 2013)

Books, magazines, drawings, models, photos, letters, objects and even furniture and paintings: it was all part of the NAi collection: appr. 500 archives and collections created by Dutch architects, and more than 40.000 books on (inter)national architecture. Since 2013 the NAI is part of Het Nieuwe Instituut.

Below you will find some highlights from the NAI collection. For more info see the Collection in Het Nieuwe Instituut or the archived pages of the NAI.

De Stijl at Centre Pompidou

23 NOVEMBER 2010

December 2010 The Centre Pompidou in Paris opened a large-scale exhibition on De Stijl and Piet Mondriaan. This is first time that such a significant retrospective of this avant-garde movement and one of its most prominent representatives has been held in France. The NAI has loaned more than 100 items for this exhibition from the archives of architects such as Theo van Doesburg, Cornelis van Eesteren, J.J.P. Oud, P.J.C. Klaarhamer, Jan Wils and J.M.L. Lauweriks.

Robert van 't Hoff at The KröllerMüller Museum

29 MARCH 2010

In April 2010 The Kröller-Müller Museum mounted an exhibition about the life and work of Robert van ’t Hoff (1887-1979) – a socially committed architect who turned his back on De Stijl because of its lack of social engagement. NAI managed the small Van ’t Hoff archive.

Euralille and the Grand Palais

1 AUGUST 2006

The city of Lille in Northern France aims to develop into a business center rivaling London or Brussels. OMA, the office of Rem Koolhaas, has given form to this ambition in the Euralille master plan. It was a largescale and complex design assignment. The Euralille dossier - part of the OMA archive - has been inventoried and made accessible.

John Hejduk: Building in the mind

1 NOVEMBER 2005

The exhibition Piet Sanders: a Dream Collection (2015/2016) presented a number of the architectural models Sanders has donated to the NAI from his private collection. The makers of the models include Asymptote, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk and Daniel Libeskind. The library has also regularly benefitted from Sanders' generosity over the years. In addition, the NAI has made a small selection from his donations consisting of publications by and about a designer in whom Sanders took a particular interest: the American architect John Hejduk (1929-2000).

OMA depot and database on exhibition

1 MARCH 2004

March 2004 the NAi transferred the entire archive of Rem Koolhaas/OMA from the collection depot to the exhibition gallery. The exhibition START showed archival material stretching for a length of 105 metres. The NAI took this opportunity to demonstrate how it manages and preserves cultural heritage. This heritage is made up of not only historical archives but also the archives of contemporary architects whose future importance is already evident.