Our collection is characterized by a focus on materials, which document architecture as a material practice. It contains archives with complete documentations of works or projects, as well as selected pieces or fragments from experimental, research and studio practice that give insight into the productive potential of architectural practice.

The main corpus of the collection consists of drawings, maquette and material fragments of different origin, diapositives, fogli and historic magazines as well as texts. At the beginning the focus of the collection was on the second half of the 20th century in Europe, the Americas as well as South-East Asia through the acquisition of documents of historical or scientific relevance. Special attention was hereby given to developments in Italy, Germany, the US and Japan among others, through the acquisition of a selection of relevant magazines from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Bauhaus as well as post-war Italy are two main topics, which mark this first phase of the collection.

This activity now continues with the documentation of on-going projects such as exhibitions and workshops always with a focus on experimental practices in the areas of architecture, landscape and the visual arts.

The whole corpus is organized in funds and collections, which can be either related to a single author, to a collective, to a precise project or topic. For this reason, single items can be present in multiple funds and collections at the same time. A variety of series connect the single items as well as the different funds.