Industrial designer Friso Kramer, graphic agency Total Design, galleries Binnen and Ra, jewellery designers Onno Boekhoudt and Chris Steenbergen, fashion illustrator Constance Wibaut and weaving mill De Ploeg – besides being icons of Dutch design history, they now have something else in common. They are among 19 designers and organisations whose archives were recently taken over by heritage institutions and are being catalogued and made available to the public.
19 design archives rescued
The collections feature original sketches, correspondence, photographs, samples, press clippings and adverts. Their placement with appropriate heritage institutions makes available a range of new information and images for use in research, exhibitions and books.
The Design Archives Working Group, with financial support from the Mondriaan Foundation, oversaw the 19 archives’ transfer between 2007 and 2009. The working group – a project of Premsela, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Netherlands Institute for Art History – worked from a priority list of nationally and internationally important archives compiled by an advisory committee and external experts.
Details of these archives and hundreds more can be found in the Central Register of Design Archives (CRDa). The database was created to map the whereabouts and contents of archives around the Netherlands. It contains full information on 350, with links to online inventory lists where possible, and basic data (full name, years active and speciality) on 1,350 additional designers and companies.
The rescue of the 19 archives and development of the CRDa were part of a Mondriaan Foundation-funded plan to improve official protection of Dutch design heritage.
Contact the CRDa
To register details of a Dutch design archive or ask a question about archiving, contact the CRDa info desk by email or on +31 (0)20 3449 443.
