a fire can destroy a great deal, but it always induces us to create something perfectly new.
As we know, the fire destroyed the building of the Faculty of Architecture in TU Delft in May 2008. It was a home to students, one of the most valuable collections of architectural magazines, books and drawings in the Netherlands. It also hosted a collection of chairs, designed by architects from all over the world. It's sad but all that things disappeared with the building. Bouwkunde is official Dutch name of the Faculty of Architecture. The place where one spoke with colleagues and fellow students, where tired and proud students presented their projects after sleepless nights of drawing, where people find followers, where work and study make them happy... This is a Bouwkunde. And it doesn't matter where that life could be, in the old or new building.
In 1970, when the old faculty moved from the historic centre of Delft to outskirts of the current campus, many people believed the faculty would lose touch with "the city". But it wouldn’t and became an architectural centre of the Netherlands. Bouwkunde occupies a special position in Delft. And the new building of the Faculty of Architecture is the same according to its position and emotionality in the architectural world, has connections with knowledge and art, design and research activity, practice and theory, tradition and innovation, construction and architectural shapes, historical and new architecture of the Netherlands. It should be an icon, some signed object which can tell everyone about its expression, facility to develop students own views on design.