Mijnbouw building - history

Meeting room Quarts / Professor's room

Project facts

Location
Delft
Date
1912 - 2022

Professor's room

This is the old professor's room of the Mining Faculty. Here, the important matters of the faculty were discussed. In addition to meetings of the examination committee and department council, the professors also gathered here to march to the auditorium with the graduating students, where all the parents would already be waiting. Against the side wall stands a [type of wood] cabinet. This has served for decades as a closet for the professors' robes.

If only these walls could talk...

Flooring in the hallways

The hallways throughout the building feature the original terzzo flooring with beautiful mosaics on the intersections. We've sanded and polised these floors again, and repaired damaged areas. For remodeled parts or the building, like the new restrooms, we've picked a modern variant (Durabella) to match the look but save weight for the new wooden subflooring. Fun fact: during construction in 1908, the original terazzo was sourced for 4 Guilders (less than €2) per square metre -the price of half a cappuccino today.

Memorial window

This stained-glass window is in memory of the twenty-one 'Mining Engineers' – twenty students and one professor - who fell during the Second World War. The memorial window was unveiled on May 3, 1947.

Their names are:

• Prof. Dr. Ir. Johannes Mekel: professor of historical geology and paleontology, founder of the Mekel resistance group ✝ May 3, 1942 (60 years)
• Louis Klein Bog ✝ March 28 (25 years)
• Ir. Erik Scheffer ✝ May 3, 1945 (29 years)
• Jaap Hardeman ✝ May 10, 1940 (21 years)
• Rudolf de Vries ✝ February 24 (28 years)
• Johan van Slooten ✝ May 3, 1942 (24 years)
• Hans Simon Thomas ✝ May 12, 1940 (32 years)
• Johannes Hesselberg ✝ August 30, 1944 (25 years)
• Joan Larive ✝ September 10, 1943 (23 years)
• Ewoud Sibinga Mulder ✝ April 24, 1945 (21 years)
• Leonardus Vuijk ✝ January 30, 1945 (24 years)
• Henny van Zadelhoff ✝ May 3, 1942 (22 years)
• Joan van den Honert ✝ May 3, 1942 (27 years)
• Jaap Bezaan ✝ February 11, 1945 (29 years)
• Henry Burgers ✝ February 3, 1945 (25 years)
• Pieter Groenewege ✝ September 25, 1942 (22 years)
• Cornelis van Holst Pellekaan ✝ November 20, 1942 (20 years)
• Pieter Egas ✝ April 29, 1945 (30 years)
• Alexander von Faber ✝ April 22, 1945 (29 years)
• Hubert Hamers ✝ December 29, 1944 (23 years)
• Felix Bloemgarten ✝ July 26, 1943 (24 years)

Lest they be forgotten.

Auditorium

In these benches, thousands of 'Mining Engineers' over the years have absorbed the knowledge and exotic travel stories of their professors in the graduation disciplines resource technology, petroleum extraction, technical geophysics and engineering geology. This auditorium also hosted events such as graduation ceremonies. In the heyday of the faculty, there were about 60 graduates per year. This made it a relatively small and close-knit study program, something that was reinforced by the six years of study - instead of the usual five. This was due to the amount of practical work: two summers working in a coal mine, one summer in an ore mine, one summer on an oil field, and one summer of geological fieldwork. The practical work in the mines was also the reason that at that time only men could study Mining Engineering. Upon graduation, in addition to the diploma, one also received a 'hekkel': a geologist's hammer. Subsequently, the graduates would be carried out on the shoulders of younger students and treated to a traditional beer shower outside, singing the Mining anthem Glück Auf!

Mineralogical Museum

The upper floor of this wing was home to the Mineralogical Museum of the TU Delft. Originally, the museum covered no less than three floors. Over time, two floors have been used for other purposes, including a chemical lab on the ground floor and workspaces for PhD students on the second floor.

This wing is also designed differently from the rest of the building: a different design on the outside and the use of metal roof trusses on the inside, as opposed to the wooden trusses in the rest of the building, with an extra sturdy foundation to support the enormous weight of all the rocks and minerals.

The museum's collection is now managed by Naturalis, Leiden.

Original color palette

The colors you see throughout the building are based on the original color palette of the building. Based on paint samples and stratigraphic research, where the paint is removed layer by layer, interior architect Fokkema & Partners has proposed the current shades. The colors have been adjusted where necessary compared to the original because modern types of paint have a different appearance than the original oil paint, and factors such as gloss change over time, resulting in a different appearance.

Altogether, truly a 'renovation with respect'.