History of the establishment of an institution for the history of architecture An architectural museum has long been sought in the Netherlands. It began back in the last century when the Maatschappij tot Bevordering der Bouwkunst, founded in 1842, began collecting drawings and models. By 1910, however, this had become more difficult because the Maatschappij itself had run into problems. In 1912, the architect J.H.W. Leliman (jr.), in response to the announcement of the commemorative exhibition "100 years of the Netherlands" in 1913, argued in his now famous article in De Bouwwereld for a permanent solution in the form of an architecture museum. The society Architectura et Amicitia accepted the challenge and appointed a committee. This committee issued a memorandum in 1916 to the Minister of the Interior, who then appointed a State Commission in 1918. The committee came up with the advice in 1919 to establish a Rijksmuseum for Architecture in Amsterdam. Not much happened with this advice. However, collecting continued and the archives were temporarily housed in the Rijksprentenkabinet. In 1923 there was another architecture exhibition, this time because of the 25th anniversary of Queen Wilhelmina's reign. Part of the exhibition, the so-called Jubilee Exhibition, was afterwards stored in the Rijksprentenkabinet in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. After the Second World War, the thread was picked up and on September 5, 1955, the Stichting Architectuurmuseum (SAM) was established. Members of the foundation were appointed by the Bond van Nederlandse Architecten (BNA) and the society Architectura et Amicitia (AetA). The aim of the foundation was to "collect, preserve, maintain and make accessible to interested parties drawings, documents and other orginalia, photographs, models and books and records, which are of importance for the knowledge of Dutch architecture" (art. 2 foundation deed). The SAM managed to acquire many architectural archives, but nothing came of the pursuit of its own museum building. This own building was necessary because the collection continued to grow. In the 1960s attempts were made again to get a real museum off the ground. The City of Amsterdam was sympathetic to the idea of an architecture museum and promised a building : the Arsenal, on Waterloo Square, next to the Academy of Architecture. Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, the BNA had planned its new office. At the end of the 1960s, the housing situation for the SAM's archives had become tenuous. Discussions with the Ministry of Culture, Recreation and Social Work (CRM), however, did not lead to the foundation of a state museum for architecture because the minister had by now decided that there would be no new state museums. The Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg (RDMZ), meanwhile, had become increasingly interested in the "younger monument." The State therefore saw the SAM's collections as a resource for RDMZ because those collections documented the period that the RDMZ would increasingly have to deal with in the future. In 1970, therefore, the Dutch Documentation Center for Architecture (NDB) was established by the central government. Organizationally it was placed under the Art History Department of the RDMZ. It was housed in the Arsenal in Amsterdam. The NDB was given the task of managing and making accessible the archives of the SAM that had yet to be transferred and the archives donated to the State and stored in the Rijksmuseum. In 1971 the art historian Fons Asselbergs was appointed the first administrator of the NDB; he was also secretary of the SAM from 1972. From the beginning, there were insufficient personnel to properly access the collections; in 1972 the SAM archives were officially transferred to the State of the Netherlands. The staff shortage was fought by employing interns, conscientious objectors and through other arrangements such as the Temporary Employment Program (TAP). Many researchers, meanwhile, found their way to the NDB. In 1974, the NDB temporarily moved to the Government Administration Building, Droogbak 1a, pending renovation of the Arsenal. However, its stay at the Droogbak became permanent because the Arsenal remodel did not go through. However, the National Administration Building was not adapted to the NDB's task; managing archives. In the monument year 1975, four very successful exhibitions were organized from the NDB. However, in organizing exhibitions, the NDB went beyond its remit and the administrator was made aware of this. The NDB had to refocus on its task. Asselbergs could not agree with the policy. He stepped down in 1978. Dick van Woerkom was appointed in his place, until then Asselbergs' deputy and originally an architect. The SAM meanwhile had not been disbanded in 1972. The main reason for its continued existence was that a private organization could make purchases on the free market more easily than a government agency and was also eligible for subsidies. Because of the curtailment of the NDB's freedom, the SAM was now going to organize its own exhibitions. The exhibitions were supported by the NDB with considerable time and manpower. This led to major problems between the SAM and the NDB and RDMZ. By 1979, the SAM was virtually bankrupt due to organizing exhibitions that attracted too few people. The BNA, until then hardly interested in the SAM, was willing to give its stepchild a financial injection of ¦ 50,000 as well as provide secretarial facilities up to a maximum of ¦ 30,000. In return, it claimed the posts of president and secretary/treasurer, to be filled by the then president and director of the BNA, respectively. This was accepted by the SAM without too much difficulty. The NDB itself restarted an exhibition program in the early 1980s. This program resulted in 1983 in a series of five exhibitions on the theme of "the New Building." The same museums as in 1975 participated, expanded to include Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Again the success was great. Other 1983 exhibitions that also achieved success were "100 Years of Architecture in and around Amsterdam" and "Biennale of Young Dutch Architects." At the beginning of the 1980s, a modest increase in personnel could be realized. There was now an employee for the general service, an administrative assistant and an archivist. In addition, one had to continue to rely on contractors, interns or people employed temporarily through one arrangement or another. Meanwhile, the National Commission for Museums had advised the Minister of Welfare, Public Health and Culture (WVC) in 1982 to establish an institute for architecture and urban design. This would include the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environmental Hygiene (VROM) should be involved because of its responsibility for the built environment. Into this institute should merge the NDB, SAM and the Housing Foundation (Wonen). With the latter partner, both the SAM and the NDB had increasingly begun to cooperate. This resulted, among other things, in the series of exhibitions "Biennale young Dutch Architects," which were held every two years starting in 1983. It was during the opening of the first Biennale Young Dutch Architects that the deputy director general of Cultural Affairs of WVC announced on behalf of the minister that the advice of the Rijkscommissie voor de musea was adopted. In 1983 and 1984, discussions were held between the five parties involved in establishing an architecture institute (SAM, NDB, Wonen, WVC and VROM). They were finally able to agree and nothing seemed to stand in the way of the establishment of the Netherlands Institute for Architecture and Urbanism. For the three institutions to merge, it spoke for itself that the institute would be located in Amsterdam, the city where they had been working for so long and successfully. Things would turn out differently, however, because Rotterdam had also come up early on as a place to establish a Dutch architecture museum. They even already had a building in mind, namely the old Municipal Library building. Amsterdam acted late and even the offer to rent part of the world-famous Beurs van Berlage for ¦ 1 per year was to no avail. Minister Brinkman chose Rotterdam with cultural diffusion as an argument for that choice. A storm of protest arose against this decision. Many newspaper articles and letters were the result. Both the SAM and the Housing Foundation suspended their participation in the merger talks if the minister did not reverse this decision. The NDB, as an official organization, could do little against this decision but the employees agreed with all the actions that were being initiated to stay in Amsterdam. The minister did not review the decision and announced that they would then continue with the NDB alone. The SAM was the first to realize that nothing more could be done about the location. Although they would have liked to stay in Amsterdam, the establishment of the NAI was more important than where it would be located. For the Wonen Foundation, both the old Municipal Library and the location were insurmountable obstacles. Wonen only agreed when the minister came with a guarantee of new construction and was promised that they would not have to move into the Municipal Library temporarily while waiting for the new building. Discussions were resumed and a steering committee emerged from the 1983/84 working group to shape the merger in cooperation with an external organizational consultancy, Andersson, Elffers and Felix, from Utrecht. Busy times began for the NDB as preparations had to be made for the move. It soon became clear, however, that this would not be easy because there were large backlogs of archive material that had been used for exhibitions and because most of the archives had not yet been inventoried. Additional staff was hired and began to improve the management records of the archives because it was not clear which archives were on loan and which were owned by the SAM or the NDB or the State. A closure of the reading room because of the many works also proved necessary as did the cessation of making exhibitions. A long period of cleaning up and then inventorying began. On January 1, 1989, the Netherlands Institute for Architecture, Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture (NAI) was established. The SAM transferred the archives in its possession to the state, which then transferred these and the collections already in state ownership to the NAI. After the staff of the Housing Foundation joined the new foundation on January 1, 1989, the staff of the NDB followed in December 1990. This was due to problems related to the civil service status of the NDB staff. The SAM transferred its duties to the NAI but continued to exist, with the intention of possibly dissolving itself only 1 year after moving into the new building. However, the final liquidation of the foundation did not take place until 1997. The remaining assets became available to the Leliman Association.