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.
CRDa
The Central Register of Design Archives (CRDa) online database acts as a public clearinghouse for information on the archives of Dutch designers, agencies, manufacturers, galleries and professional associations. It was established on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in response to the dispersal of design archives in the Netherlands. The country has no independent institute for design archives. Historically important documents are housed in different institutions and their accompanying objects placed in various museums.
Premsela, the Graphic Design Museum, Nederlands Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands Architecture Institute and the Netherlands Institute for Art History worked together to create the CRDa. Its development was funded by the Mondriaan Foundation and comprised part of a 2007 master plan for improving the management of Dutch design archives. The plan also led to the safeguarding of the 19 identified as most important and in danger of being lost.
The CRDa continues to work to improve the management of Dutch design archives and identify related problems.
The database lists more than 1,700 designers and companies of national and international importance working between 1850 and the present. Basic data (full name, years active and speciality) are available for approximately 1,350. Archive information is available for the other 350, with links to online inventory lists where possible. Listings with archive information include those of Van Gispen, Piet and Friso Kramer, and Van Kempen & Begeer, whose careers together span 150 years of Dutch design history. For some designers and companies, though, the whereabouts of archival material – and sometimes whether any even exists – is unknown. The CRDa info desk welcomes new information on design archives and reports of archives in danger of being lost.
The CRDa is linked to RKDartists&, an extensive database of artists’ and designers’ biographies and information on agencies, manufacturers, galleries, collectors and historians. RKD staff continually add to the database. RKDartists& also contains references to online files and books, articles, and visual material available for consultation at the RKD.
