Collection of natural stones in online library

News - 06 December 2018 - Communication BK

Together with the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency (CHA) and TNO, BK Bouwkunde TU Delft developed a digital natural stone library. The considerable collections of natural stone of both the RCE and the TU Delft are now easily accessible. Thus, identification and application of natural stone becomes more effortless for architects, conservators, and researchers.

The digital natural stone library was developed within the collaboration project Building Conservation Knowledge and can be found here. The collections of the CHA and the TU Delft can be used to identify less common natural stone varieties. For each natural stone sample, a number of base characteristics has been described, as well as specific characteristics where possible. The samples are ordered based on the standardised terminology as described in the Dutch Scope statement on Natural Stone. The website is available in Dutch, English, and German.

The collection of the CHA mainly consists of construction stones collected by the Dutch National Sculptor, like Van der Schaft and Slinger. Later on, additions were made by natural stone advisers of the Agency, mostly connected to restoration projects. Furthermore, a number of decorative stones are part to the collection.

The collection of BK Bouwkunde is managed by the section Heritage & Architecture and consists of two parts. The first part of the collection consists of construction stones, street stones, and decorative stones. These were collected from the end of the 19th century by the former Chair of Building Materials of Professor Van der Kloes. The second part of the collection was transferred from the collection of the Mineral-Geology Museum of the former Faculty of Mining Engineering of the TU Delft. These stones were (presumably) collected during study trips; not all of these stones were used as construction material. The first part of the collection has already been added to the database, the second part will be uploaded in 2019. The full collection can be seen physically at BK City, room 01.West.010. 

Within the collaboration project Building Conservation Knowledge, TNO, TU Delft, and the CHA have merged their available knowledge for the maintenance of monuments. The programmatic collaboration has existed since 2015. Together, research is conducted to improve the conservation of built cultural heritage. The research goal is to better understand deterioration and to develop better conservation and restoration methods. The collaboration also focusses on making the shared knowledge better accessible to professionals in the field.