The archive is rather uneven in structure. Most of the projects are only fragmentarily documented, while a great deal of material is present from a few projects.
Organizing the archive was made difficult by the complicated genesis of many of Blom's projects. Several times a client dropped out halfway through, only to ask for a new variant later. Thus, the multi-family house Hengelo is a precursor of the Kasbah, but the study "Housing as a general urban roof" can also be considered a precursor of the Kasbah. The mensa of the T.H. Twente ('Bastille') is all that remained of the much more ambitious Agora plan for the center area of the campus. The Blaak project also had two phases, with high-rise buildings being added in the final phase as a cost-cutting measure. n Blom's design practice, moreover, everything is connected to everything else. A theme such as "Housing as a general urban roof" recurs in ever-changing guises.
In order to still give the material a clear structure, a strictly chronological arrangement was chosen in the chapter 'Design Activity'. This was obvious, especially since Blom accurately dated almost all of his drawings. Because these dates provide relevant information about the course of the design process, the inventory lists the start and end dates of drawings (series) as precisely as possible (separated by a '/'): 'dd-mm-yyyy' [e.g., 6-2-1960] or if the day indication is missing 'mm-yyyy' [e.g., 2-1960].
In addition, Blom provided most drawings with a drawing number - listed in the inventory as 'tek.nr. ...' -, combined with a code indicating the relevant design construction phase (vo = preliminary design / do = final design / b = specifications / rb = structural work / ab = completion / int = interior / ter = site layout). This arrangement, coinciding with the chronological one, was maintained. In this way, a clear understanding of the design process emerges.
The sketchbooks included under 'Design Activity' have been described as a separate category because they contain sketches from multiple projects, in addition to notes and draft letters. Within the 'Training' and 'Architectural Practice' categories, reference is made to these sketchbooks - where relevant.
The exhibition 'Piet Blom. A drawn autobiography' is described in a separate section because of its specificity. It concerns a project initiated by Piet Blom himself in 1998, in which he wanted to give a complete overview of his design activity by means of self-made panels with collages. He made 29 panels; his death left the project unfinished. Here, too, references have always been made to the material described under "Architectural Practice.
Piet Blom's archive also contained many series of small-frame slides of various projects. These are described in groups under the project in question and provided with an 'n' number, which can therefore refer to several slides. The same applies to the photographs with 'f' numbers.