The past creating the future

Delft has been a world leader in science and technology for centuries. A place where theoretical science, technology, design and business have often inspired and supported each other. The businessman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) established a model of Delft innovation when he earned the title ‘father of microbiology’ with the crucial help of a microscope that he designed. Since the nineteenth century, science, technology and business have also increasingly benefited from a symbiotic relationship with the arts and design in a way that has become characteristic of Delft. 

Not surprisingly, then, the city is now also home to many businesses – from venerable to start-up – and a great variety of educational institutions, most notably, of course, Delft University of Technology, or TU Delft. Extending approximately 1 kilometre from the edge of the old city to the southeast, the impressive, spacious and green campus of TU Delft is convenient to a variety of public transport networks and is laced with cycle paths. Two railway stations, the urban and regional network of motorways and the city centre are all close at hand. 

City views of Delft in the 1920s