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.