Gewinner Kategorie “Working together”: Stadtarchiv Delft
© TEd’Aarquitectes

An oversized bookcase

Brick Award 20

City Archive Delft; Brick Award 2020 Category Winner Category "Working Together"; Architects: Office Winhov, Gottlieb Paludan Architects, Photo:  Stefan Müller
© Stefan Müller

City Archive Delft

Working together - Category Winner

City Archive Delft; Brick Award 2020 Category Winner Category "Working Together"; Architects: Office Winhov, Gottlieb Paludan Architects, Photo:  Stefan Müller
© Stefan Müller

Used products

Facing bricks

An oversized bookcase

The façade of the City Archive in Delft reflects the bookshelves found inside – this unusual idea for the city’s important building was the brainchild of Office Winhov and Gottlieb Paludan Architects. 

Focus on the history of the old city of Delft

An archive is like a treasure trove. Or a time machine. Or both. That’s why, for the city of Delft in the Netherlands, the city archive is an especially important building, because it is where the city’s history is preserved and available to the public. The task of the architectural firms Office Winhov, in Amsterdam, and Gottlieb Pauladen Architects, in Copenhagen, was therefore to develop a new archive building in the middle of a park, creating visual links to the historic city centre.
 
The result is a timeless, rugged cube with a brick façade and the highly efficient organisation of internal space. On the ground floor, there are offices, workshops and public reading rooms with unobstructed views of the outside; the floors above have closed façades and house the archive depositories.

Careful variation

The relief work on the façade links the building with the distinctive tradition of brick buildings in Delft. The white concrete base is a clear reference to other public buildings in the city’s historic centre, and the classic arrangement highlights the cultural and public importance of the archive building. The abstract brickwork is intended to be both reminiscent of bookshelves and evoke associations with the work of Jan Schoonhoven, one of Delft’s most important artists. 
 
The facing bricks were laid in a regular pattern with variable recesses. The result is an external brick design that references the high level of detail within the archives. The public building, which is important to Delft, is open to the public for research and work in the reading rooms, and makes a significant contribution to collective work on historical records, above and beyond temporal and historical boundaries. A worthy winner in the ‘Working together’ category.

City Archive Delft; Brick Award 2020 Category Winner Category "Working Together"; Architects: Office Winhov, Gottlieb Paludan Architects, Photo:  Stefan Müller
© Stefan Müller

Data & facts

Project name: City Archive, Delft, The Netherlands

Architecture   Office Winhov (NL) & Gottlieb Paludan Architects (DK)

Client   Municipality of Delft

Year of completion  2017

Product used   Facing bricks

City Archive Delft; Brick Award 2020 Category Winner Category "Working Together"; Architects: Office Winhov, Gottlieb Paludan Architects, Photo:  Stefan Müller
© Stefan Müller

Facing bricks - The Netherlands

Kontaktieren Sie uns

More inspiration