ROTTERDAM.- Last Thursday, 18 June, Nieuwe Instituut — the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture in Rotterdam — opened not one, but two new exhibitions. Each brings the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning – which is managed by Nieuwe Instituut – to life in its own distinct way.

The new Collection Gallery is an interactive, hybrid space featuring projections, mirrored panels, scale models and drawings from the National Collection. Visitors will embark on a journey of discovery through 150 years of stories about the design of the Dutch built environment.

Many of these themes remain relevant today, including housing shortages, colonial architecture, garden cities, computer-aided design and the role of female architects. Visitors are in control and during the three years on show, objects will be rotated and stories will be added, in response to current events. This ensures there is always something new to discover.

One floor up, Just In #2: Work in Progress offers a unique behind-the-scenes insight into the Nieuwe Instituut, showcasing 13 acquisitions that have recently been added to the National Collection. The exhibition presents the archived items in their original state, including correspondence in shoeboxes, drawings in folders and digital files on hard drives.

At various times, archivists from the Nieuwe Instituut will be working live in the exhibition space. Visitors can watch acquisitions being unpacked, examined and described, and can ask the archivists questions about the archival documents, the collection process or the significance of the acquisitions. Videos from the Out of the Box series, in which archivists unpack acquisitions and share their thoughts and experiences, are shown continuously.





Just In #2 (credit Aad Hoogendoorn)

About the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning
Everything in our living environment was designed at some point. From landscapes and cities to the places where we meet, the houses we live in and the objects we use each day, everything is the result of designers’ choices, questions and ideas. The way we shape and design our living environment reflects our thoughts on society. In the designed world, everything is interconnected, from the smallest element to the largest whole.

This fact lies at the heart of the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, which is managed by the Nieuwe Instituut. With around 4.5 million items ranging from drawings and models to design sketches, study materials and correspondence, this is one of the world’s largest architecture collections. It contains countless inspiring examples of how designers from the world-leading Dutch tradition of architecture and spatial planning have addressed universal challenges such as housing shortages, land use, environmental issues and social justice. One of the Nieuwe Instituut's goals is to make the National Collection accessible to all.

The National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning can also always be accessed via the Nieuwe Instituut’s Re-Centre and online Collection Platform. Here, visitors can explore the collection through stories, objects and relationships in an intuitive and associative way.

Nieuwe Instituut’s Aukje Bolle, Managing Director and Yesomi Umolu, Artistic Director, say: “The new Collection Gallery and Just In #2 embody everything that the Nieuwe Instituut stands for: a collection that belongs to everyone, and which everyone can explore. With more than 150 years of design history, the National Collection shows how Dutch architects and urban planners have consistently found answers to major questions about living and sharing space. Such questions remain just as urgent today. The richness of the collection lies not only in well-known names and iconic buildings, but also in its stories, which cover topics such as female architects, the squatters’ movement, the history of colonial architecture and the first computer-aided design.”

The new Collection Gallery in Gallery 1.3 and Just In #2 in Gallery 2 at the Nieuwe Instituut will be open to visitors from 19 June until 9 August 2026. After this date, the museum wing will temporarily close for renovation and sustainability upgrades. The remainder of Nieuwe Instituut will stay fully accessible. Once works are completed — expected in early December — the Collection Gallery will return and is set to remain open at least until 2027.