15/10/2025
Extracts from the archive, part II: drawings of the Aue Pavilions for Documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, 1992.
Following the restoration and transformation of Henry van de Velde’s Boekentoren, the archive of Robbrecht en Daem is now also finding a home in this iconic building. We are systematically transferring both the paper and digital archives to the Boekentoren, where they will be preserved in optimal conditions and made accessible for scientific research, education, exhibitions and publications. This archive includes sketches, photographs, plans, tender documents, correspondence, models and ephemera from some 600 projects. The Documenta IX/Aue Pavilions was one of the first projects to be transferred.
The addition of the Robbrecht en Daem architecten’s archive not only continues the tradition of Gandavensia (items related to Ghent) playing a central role in the Boekentoren’s heritage collection, but also reflects the close collaboration with the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies, the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Vandenhove Centre. The Boekentoren already houses archives of artists such as Raoul De Keyser, Jan Vercruysse and René Heyvaert. The Robbrecht en Daem archive adds an architectural dimension to this, which ties in with the 19th-century collections of architects such as Louis Roelandt and Louis Minard and the archive of the Boekentoren’s own construction by Van de Velde.