The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in Hilversum is amazing. The building in which the archives are housed is itself a marvel of Dutch design. Every detail was planned and executed to fit with the purpose and vision of the institute. The building is 96 meters from top to bottom; it stands 26 meters above ground and descends 70 meters underground. Part of the reason for building so much of the structure below ground level is because of building height restrictions in Hilversum. In addition, the underground temperature is a fairly constant 17 degrees Centigrade, making it easier to regulate the temperature of sensitive archived materials.
The building clearly is built for function, but it’s aesthetically brilliant, too. The ceiling is designed to be a sort of 3-D puzzle; if it were rotated and lowered, it would fit perfectly into the “canyon,” or underground portion of the building. Portraits of important names in Dutch radio broadcasting decorate a screen separating offices from the rest of the interior. Colorful etched windows let in light on sunny days (unfortunately, we didn’t visit on such a day). A rainwater-filled pond (that got fuller as we were there) supplies water for the emergency sprinkler system, and enormous fans are in place to suck smoke away from the most sensitive areas.
Such design considerations are crucial, as the archives house thousands of hours of recorded Dutch history. The institute stores media in numerous forms, such as wax drums, vinyl records and digital betamax tapes, among others. It also has the equipment to replay all of the archived media.
The institute aims to make its records accessible to the public, so it allows people to make digital recordings from its collection. Dr. Roeland Ordelman of NISV stressed the importance of access and “drawing users and the community into the loop” of archiving its historical records. The institute has even designed an online game to get people involved in tagging audiovisual materials. And they don’t just tag whole works; videos are tagged at different time stamps so people will be able to do fragment searches of the videos’ content.
Everything about the institute spoke of its purpose: giving people access to their archived history. The building itself is inviting, and the archivists are working to give people multiple ways to search and access the information contained within it. I hope such an approach is taken in American archives.
The architecture-lover in me thinks that building sounds super cool. Sounds like a fun trip!