NETHERLANDS:ONE OF Europe's finest architectural libraries, with designs, furniture, drawings and scale models by some of the world's most famous architects and designers, was destroyed in a fire that ripped through part of Delft University on Tuesday.
The university's high-rise architecture faculty collapsed after the sixth floor caved in under the force of the blaze fought by 185 fire officers and 50 fire engines.
The fire, which broke out after a short-circuit in a coffee machine, destroyed a library of some 40,000 books described by experts as "the most important architectural collection in the country and among the best in Europe".
Important works by The Netherlands's most famous furniture designer and one of the leaders of the early 20th century "De Stijl" movement, Gerrit Rietveld, who designed Amsterdam's Van Gogh museum, were also lost. But some of his chairs were hurled to safety, it was reported.
Furniture exhibits, scale models and drawings by Rietveld, Le Corbusier, Prouve and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others, went up in smoke. They had been gathered together in preparation for a exhibition, due to open today. The exhibition was due to focus on breakaway architects whose designs revolutionised urban planning between the two World Wars. A unique series of etchings by 18th-century architect and artist Giovanni Piranesi was also lost.
Shocked architectural students, some within weeks of sitting final exams, were distraught as scale models and exam projects - many backed up on computers also lost in the blaze, and representing many years of work - were wiped out. Onlookers said it was a miracle nobody was killed or injured.
The college is also The Netherlands's top technical university, dedicated to research and development of safer building standards.
Many questions will be asked, in particular about the frightening speed at which the blaze took hold, sweeping through the building and releasing asbestos fumes.
Mayor of Delft Bas Verkerk said firefighters had reacted adequately to the blaze but were hampered by the university's cramped position between buildings, making it difficult to access.
There were also reports that an undetected leaking water pipe on one of the upper floors may have sparked the short-circuit which started the fire.