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THE CAMPUS The TU Delft has a rich history and has moved around the city of Delft in the last two decades. Where the university was first based within the city centre, it gradually moved outside the city. In the 60s and 70s the campus expanded more to the south of Delft and most of the campus as we know it now was built.
The TU Delft started as the Royal Academy (Koninklijke Akademie) on the 8th of January 1842. The school was founded by a man named Antoine Lipkens and took residence in a prestigious canal house at the Oude Delft. This particular canal house was built in 1717, and had already had multiple purposes. It had been a brewery, a private residence, and before the Royal Academy was founded, it had been a military school. The royal academy was not very successful, therefore it was dissolved in 1864 and the buildings were given to the Polytechnic school (Polytechnische school). The way of teaching at the Polytechnic school looked already a lot like the way students are taught at universities today. On the right there is a map of Delft that shows the situation in 1905. In 1905, when certain educational laws were changed, the name of the school was changed into ‘Technische Hoogeschool van Delft’. Even though the name did not suggest it, the school was now considered as an university. Yet it took another 80 years till they changed the name to ‘Technische Universiteit Delft’, or in short: TU Delft.
Oude Delft 95 (1717)
THEN & NOW
