Theories and history of architecture (museums)

While travelling in a train to Utrecht to attend yet another preparatory meeting for the establishment of what would become the Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (NAi, Netherlands Architecture Institute) in 1984, Mariet Willinge, the deputy director of the NDB (Nederlands Documentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst, Dutch Documentation Center for Architecture), and Ruud Brouwers, the Policy Director of the Stichting Wonen (Living/Housing Foundation), reached an agreement: the two organizations would come
together for the new institute, but they ‘would be separated by a glass wall in the middle’.1 As Willinge and Brouwers reassured other passengers overhearing their conversation that this agreement did not pertain to an estranged marriage but to a new architecture institute, they were effectively defining the NAi’s intellectual foundation.