A disclaimer on TU Delft’s website application portal has stirred confusion over the future of The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design. The prized Dutch architecture educational institution is not closing, Salomon Frausto, The Berlage’s director of studies, told AN.
Rather, The Berlage’s current, three-semester, Post-Master in Architecture and Urban Design program founded in 1990 will conclude “following its final cohort,” Frausto said.
Frausto affirmed the “change concerns only the post-master program format,” and that Berlage will continue “as an intellectual platform and international network, offering its renowned public program with exciting new educational formats in development.”
The last cohort will begin its studies in September 2026 and graduate in January 2028. Afterward, the post-master program in its current form will not exist. The disclaimer on the website application portal also states the “launch of the 2026–2028 cohort will depend on a sufficient number of enrollments.”
“A Very Sad Moment”
Myriad architects voiced frustration over the news. FIG Projects, founded by Fabrizio Gallanti and Francisca Insulza, said that the decision marks “a very sad moment for architectural culture.”
Wouter Vanstiphout, a Dutch educator, said the outcome is “tragic, in a way.” Vanstiphout blamed “bureaucrats and pseudo-academics who first bled it dry and now euthanized it” for the change.
“As with many post-professional architecture degree programs internationally, changing educational and institutional conditions have prompted a reconsideration of existing models,” Frausto said. “This transition should therefore be understood as an evolution of The Berlage rather than its conclusion.”
He added, “For this reason, any characterization of the current situation as the end of The Berlage is inaccurate and does not reflect either the Faculty’s commitment or our long history of reinvention.”
The Berlage: Then and Now
The Berlage was founded in Amsterdam in 1990 out of the Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage designed by Aldo van Eyck. It later moved to Rotterdam as a research-based studio model. In 2012 The Berlage was integrated into TU Delft. Since 1990, The Berlage has had five directors: Herman Hertzberger, Wiel Arets, Alejandro Zaera Polo, Vedran Mimica, and now Frausto. In 2028, pending adequate enrollment numbers, it will have graduated a total of 15 cohorts.
After 2028, The Berlage will remain a part of TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.
“The Faculty is explicitly committed to preserving and developing The Berlage’s heritage and contribution to architectural culture and education, while exploring new forms through which it can continue to serve the Faculty’s mission,” Frausto added.
Frausto emphasized that The Berlage has “continually evolved” since its inception. The pivot is in response to “changing educational and institutional conditions have prompted a reconsideration of existing models” impacting “many post-professional architecture degree programs internationally.”
In Other News
Separately, the architecture program at TU Delft is coming out of a multi-year court case over “social unsafety” allegations by a former faculty member.
An unnamed TU Delft architecture department employee from Belgium will receive significant sums of cash and her dismissal annulled, per a judge’s ruling in April. The judge presiding over the case in the Hague determined the faculty member’s termination in 2025 was unlawful.
The former employee rejected the opportunity to return to faculty at TU Delft “because the employment relationship is considered irreparably damaged.”