With its waterways, polders, forests and dunes, the Dutch landscape may be stated to have been almost entirely 'designed' on the drawing boards of garden and landscape architects. However, elaborate archives that delve into and store this information—from processes and techniques enumerating their design to age-old methods of conservation—are increasingly under pressure. In the Netherlands, there seems to not only be a clear dearth of storage spaces and facilities for these archives, but also a struggle for these archives to find a place amidst other significant collections of archival knowledge and cultural institutions; the latter, more so. This lack of harbour and even clear classification at times has led to these archives being lost with time, raising a rather urgent need for their preservation. To tackle this issue and preserve the records of garden and landscape architecture in the Netherlands for a future that increasingly demands this knowledge, the Nieuwe Instituut began a three-year study of these archives, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

Alongside the ongoing exhibition Garden Futures, running from November 16, 2024, to April 13, 2025, the Nieuwe Instituut showcases their recently concluded research project titled Memory of the Designed Landscape, harping on precisely these concerns. The multimedia exhibits designed by Jack Bardwell feature videos and photographs by Luc Schraauwers and Johannes Schwartz from four different garden and landscape archives. The selected cases—the archives of Bureau B+B, the Room for the River programme, Jan Vallen and Ben Taken and the Landscape Design Department of the Municipality of Rotterdam—illustrate the diversity of such archives and the challenges of their management and conservation. The larger Memory of the Designed Landscape programme calls for the protection of garden and landscape architecture archives that are currently under immense pressure. “If we are to prevent our designed landscape from suffering from memory loss, we must continue to preserve and share this knowledge,” reads an official statement.

In an exclusive conversation with STIR, Wietske Nutma, researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut and part of the team behind the Memory of the Designed Landscape project, traces the challenges that fuel the project and the tenets it rests upon.

Anushka Sharma: Could you shed light on some of the more specific challenges related to the conservation of garden and landscape architecture archives in the Netherlands?

Wietske Nutma: Garden and landscape architecture plays an important role in the creation of designed landscapes. So far, the archiving of garden and landscape architecture has not been designated as a public task by the government in the Netherlands and therefore, there is a lack of a clear address where these archives can be kept. This makes it extremely difficult for garden and landscape architecture professionals to identify where their oeuvre could be kept or how to access archives of this nature. In addition, the field itself lacks education and training around archival practices and good custodianship.

Partly for these reasons, much material such as plan drawings, sketches and interview reports get lost, are inaccessible, or scattered fragments that have found their way to an archive are insufficiently linked. In recent decades, the success of garden and landscape architecture grew and attention to the quality of the living environment increased. Much is produced on paper and in digital form, but a future perspective is lacking for that archive material.

Anushka: How do the archives from the four selected cases (Bureau B+B, Room for the River, Jan Vallen and Ben Taken and Rotterdam’s Landscape Design Department) reflect the diversity of landscape design practices?

Wietske: The case studies represent the diversity of archives that characterise the landscape: an active firm with a living archive (Bureau B+B), a dissolved firm with a fragmented and disappearing archive (Jan Vallen and Ben Taken), a municipal archive (Municipality of Rotterdam) and an archive of a spatial project encompassing multiple provinces (Room for the River). The cases each have their own scale and approach, a specific network and type of archive material.

Bureau Bakker en Bleeker, later known as Bureau B+B, for almost 50 years, has built up a unique archive that provides exceptional insight into the development of landscape architecture—from garden designs to large-scale landscape visions.

The collection of the Municipality of Rotterdam provides an insight into the development of the design, management and use of Rotterdam’s outdoor spaces over time in relation to the built environment. The archive literally functions as the ‘memory of the city’.

The Vallen-Taken office archive documents the work of one of the oldest private landscape architecture firms in the Netherlands. The archive is of great value because it reflects the development of the profession between the 1950s and 2010.

The Room for the River programme (2006-2019) was a large and complex national project that aimed to improve flood protection in the Netherlands by giving rivers more space. Looking to the future, water adaptation remains an urgent challenge due to climate change and rising sea levels. The knowledge and lessons learned from the Room for the River programme are therefore valuable for future projects and policies.

Anushka: In what ways does the project aim to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the design memory of the Dutch landscape?

Wietske: Within the programme, impetus is given to a jointly supported and future-proof perspective on the unique history of the designed landscape. This focuses not only on preserving, sharing and interpreting important archives but also on using them in future design assignments, and preserving the cultural and historical values of gardens and landscapes.

The programme builds on visibility by (amongst other things) building/growing a network of and for archival institutions, garden and landscape architecture professionals and future and current users of these archives, by facilitating debate and discussion surrounding the importance of these archives through its public programme, through a travelling exhibition, storytelling, workshops and training on archiving and good custodianship.

Anushka: What does designing with nature truly embody, especially in a time when the ‘designing with’ discourse gains precedence over ‘designing for’?

Wietske: ‘Designing with nature’ represents a shift towards collaboration and coexistence with the living world, rather than a top-down approach where human needs dominate the landscape. It means to allow for flexibility, growth and movement so that all living beings have and are allowed space to be. Landscapes are not static but evolve through time. Designing with that in mind, for the present and the future, is I think one of the true challenges of the profession. In the process of researching the various case studies we talked with many garden and landscape architects and they all showed beautiful projects that underline the above. Lodewijk van Nieuwenhuijze, for example, and his office H+N+S Landschapsarchitecten, played a major role in the Room for the River programme. Another example is a project by Jan Vallen and Ben Taken who had made designs based on urban greenery and zoning plans, such as the water recreation area of the Noorderplas.

Anushka: What role do cultural institutions play in the preservation of landscape architecture archives and where do they face limitations? How does the Nieuwe Instituut’s project contribute to the broader discussion on the protection of cultural heritage in landscape architecture?

Wietske: Cultural institutions play a vital role in the preservation of landscape architecture archives, from safeguarding historical materials to making them accessible for research, education and public engagement. However, they face challenges including limited resources, space and expertise, as well as fragmented ownership and access.

Within the Memory of the Designed Landscape programme, we focus not only on preserving, sharing and interpreting these important archives and the discipline’s history, but also on fostering public awareness. We are also exploring the contours of a method for valuing and selecting garden and landscape architecture archives and how to build or grow its associated network. The choice for a decentralised network form builds on the organically grown infrastructure of archives. We want this network to represent the voices of actors involved in the creation of gardens and landscapes, the people who use, study and learn from them and the archival institutions that safeguard this important history.

Anushka: What can be done to ensure that landscape archives are better integrated into institutional collections for future generations? Who are the significant contributors, both current and potential, in the revival and retention of the said archives?

Wietske: To ensure landscape architecture’s archives are better integrated into institutional collections, the collaboration between landscape architects, academic institutions, museums, archives, governmental bodies and others is essential. This collaboration is what a future network for garden and landscape architecture archives aims to foster. By working together towards more comprehensive strategies for documentation, digitisation, accessibility and public awareness, these contributors can help create a more robust and accessible archive for future generations.

Anushka: Currently addressing the Netherlands specifically, can the project be expected to expand with studies on other regions and their landscape architecture?

Wietske: At the moment, our programme has the Netherlands as its focus, but we are aware of and learning from similar efforts and best practices in other regions, such as the International Network of European Landscape Architecture (NELA). Expanding the project to include other regions and their landscape architecture or connecting to similar initiatives abroad would significantly enrich our understanding of the discipline and foster knowledge exchange on preservation and accessibility, but that is a more long-term endeavour.