In the 1980s, DAM founding director Heinrich Klotz laid the foundation stone for a large and international architecture collection, which today comprises around 200,000 plans and drawings, 35,000 photographs, 1,300 models, 60 estates and bequests as well as numerous pieces of furniture. In the USA at the end of the 1960s, Klotz had witnessed how important material was carelessly thrown away by architects after construction was completed. This prompted him to build up a collection that is still being constantly expanded today: Sketches of ideas, construction drawings and architectural models as testimonies of important architects.

We are currently creating a new image database that will gradually make the holdings of the DAM Archive visible online and enable location-independent research. In addition to the familiar objects of the “Model Collection online“, drawings and sketches from the plan collection as well as documents from the DAM’s archive of bequests will be presented there for the first time. These include, for example, the results of the digitisation project “Bauhaus documents. Letters, Sketches and Photographs by Hannes Meyer and Mart Stam”. The project was supported by the German Library Association (DBV). (DBV): https://www.bibliotheksverband.de/dbv/projekte/wissenswandel.html

The focus

There is a small selection of drawings of the 18th and 19th century, but the main focus is on 20th century architecture. Some of the most significant holdings include works by Giambattista Piranesi and Gottfried Semper, Louis I. Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Hans Scharoun, Hans Poelzig and Ernst May, or for example Aldo Rossi, Rem Koolhaas, Frank O. Gehry and Norman Foster. Works of painters such as Ben Willikens, Martin Kippenberger and Christo are also part of the Collection.
The DAM currently holds more than 33 estates, including the archives of Hannes Meyer, Mart Stam and Heinz Bienefeld.