Margaret Staal-Kropholler (1891–1966) is regarded as the first woman architect in the Netherlands. She completed her first work as an unqualified architect in 1917. Less well known is that Grada Wolffensperger (1887–1965) became the first woman to complete the univer-sity course in architecture at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft that same year. A further twenty women had completed their architectural training by 1945.

Why and how did these women become architects at a time when women w...

Women have been professional photographers since the invention of photography in 1839, but until now their work has received far less attention than that of their male colleagues. From the more than 15 million photographs stored in the Dutch National Archives in The Hague, the editors of Pioneers. Photography by Women selected work of 43 women created between 1859 and 1999. All of them can be described as innovators whose work paved the way for future generations of photographers.

Pioneers fo...

This collection book presents 106 late-medieval and Renaissance highlights. In this era the cultural centres of Europe were booming. The book introduces the wonderful collection of the Rijksmuseum in 106 illustrated entries and an essay focusing on the artist's world. Book design: Irma Boom.

Dutch Waterworks Worldwide documents the story of architecture and landscape photographer Luuk Kramer’s journey documenting waterworks built by Dutch engineers around the world, from the sixteenth century to the present day, from polders in Poland to dikes and dams in Japan, from canals in Brazil to a small lock in Surinam.

The Dutch brought knowledge gleaned from centuries of experiences with living in a delta, including land reclamation efforts, droughts and catastrophic floods. They wer...

The Netherlands was made by humans. Cities, polders, the landscape and even nature reserves have all clearly been shaped by man. The country’s planned development is as unique as it is famous.

This book describes the intriguing history of spatial planning in the Netherlands from the late Middle Ages to the present day. Where does this strong tendency towards regulation and planning come from? Did these thousands of plans always come together? Or did planners and urban designers sometimes ge...