Delft University of Technology has over the previous 177 years,become one the premier technical universities in the world. As such, it is much larger than how it started. In the 1960s that change was reflected in a new assembly hall that replaced a small local chapel for university events. With more students, the University thought big and brutal. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
I suspect the stamp designer was not a fan of brutalist architecture. Well it is an acquired taste. One that I am myself acquiring after doing this Polish stamp, seehttps://the-philatelist.com/2019/03/20/poland-1976-would-it-be-too-brutal-to-try-this-again/ and this Soviet stamp, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/02/soviet-union-1983-a-superpower-builds-big/.In those cases it was cold war era communist behind the buildings, but in this case the building came to be in the Netherlands. The impulses were the same as the school was more for the masses than before. Notice the floating spaceship aspect of the building built in 1966, the Russian fad of making their brutalist building appear to be floating was 10 years later. Innovation, as you would expect from a premier university in the field using it’s own graduates.
Todays stamp is issue A107, a 20 cent stamp issued by the Netherlands on January 5th, 1967. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the 125th anniversary of Delft University of Technology by showing the then new assembly hall. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
The University was founded as a Royal Academy in 1842. The original intent was to train colonial administrators for the then vast Dutch colonial empire. Originally the colonies were owned by the Dutch East India Company but the company went bankrupt and was nationalized in 1799. The Napoleonic Wars then played havoc with the empire but after that the need was seen for more professional management. Over time, the Netherlands home country was rapidly industrializing and the school transitioned to providing engineering training on an ever more vast scale. At the time of the Royal Academy there were 400 students, now there are over 19,000.
The assembly hall is called the Aula. It was designed by the architectural firm of van den Broek and Bakema, who were both graduates of the University. The firm mainly did large apartment buildings around Rotterdam in the Brutalist style but really went to town with the Aula. Their work was of some note internationally and they were invited to participate in the Interbau development in late 50s West Berlin. See that period Berlin architecture on a stamp here https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/17/berlin-1966-a-new-divided-and-more-corporate-berlin/
The building still stands though the great masses of visible prestressed concrete tends to be discolored if not recently pressurewashed. That is okay, brutalism only improves with a little wear, enhancing the period feel. Delft Technical University received the honor of another stamp on the 150th anniversary in 1992, but that issue did not feature the architecture of the campus. Perhaps the many newer buildings did not measure up.
Well my drink is empty, and thankfully my University days are far behind me. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.