Louis Kalff Instituut

The institute provides access to archival materials of nationally important Dutch product designers and encourages their use by supplying digital copies for use in books, lectures and exhibitions. The institute will also carry out activities in cooperation with other organisations. Named for the engineer Louis Christiaan Kalff (1897–1976), Philips’s leading aesthetic light for more than four decades, it opened on 15 April.

At a symposium on the opening day, speakers discussed the importance of preserving, studying and exhibiting industrial product archives. The participants were Peter van Dam, the author of a biography of Louis Kalff; the visual information designer Paul Mijksenaar; Timo de Rijk of VU University Amsterdam and Delft University of Technology; Mary-Ann Schreurs, Eindhoven’s councillor for innovation, culture and public space; Marie-Christine van der Sman of the Nederlands Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers (NAGO); Job Meihuizen of Premsela; and Mienke Simon Thomas of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.  

 

 

Also at the opening, the industrial designer Joop Istha, who began his career at Philips in the 1950s, transferred his archive to the Louis Kalff Instituut. In addition, the institute will receive about 4,000 sketches of appliances such as refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and washing machines. The archive will also include posters designed by Kalff, Philips’ longtime marketing chief and the architect of Eindhoven’s Evoluon conference centre. Kalff’s work will be the institute’s focus next year.

The Louis Kalff Instituut is an initiative of Premsela, the RHCe, Design Cooperation Brainport and NAGO. It is the first organisation in the Netherlands devoted exclusively to preserving and making accessible archival material of nationally important product designers.

Premsela is also working to establish a heritage centre for graphic design, advertising and typography in Amsterdam and a fashion centre in Arnhem.

Homo Musealis
In March, we held a mini-symposium on online research collaboration, Homo Musealis, with the Nationaal Glasmuseum in Leerdam and the Netherlands Institute for Art History. Digital access to museums’ and heritage institutions’ collections is making more and more knowledge accessible. This creates new opportunities for sharing and increasing knowledge and for publicising academic research in progress. At the mini-symposium, nine speakers discussed their own online projects, how institutions could encourage visitors to share knowledge online, and whether digitalisation called for a new kind of “homo musealis”.