First Year Chemsitry - Walkingroute TU Noord

General and Analytical Chemistry Laboratory
Former entrance building for Analytical Chemistry that also served as the General and Analytical Chemistry Laboratory of the Delft Institute of Technology. This is better known as the First-Year Chemistry (Scheikundige Propedeuse) building. The main staircase with its ceramic construction elements is a listed feature. Today, this building is a student housing complex with an entrance at the rear.

Main building with a monumental staircase
A programme of requirements was drawn up for the Analytical Chemistry building as early as in 1914. Two years later, Vrijman had a plan ready for the new building and Queen Wilhelmina approved the invitation for tenders. The plan provided for a main building at the so-called ‘De Vries van Heystplein’ with an elongated building complex built in parallel behind it connecting four pavilions with one another. The entire complex was completed with a main section containing a beautiful staircase. The monumental staircase is decorated with stained glass and glazed tiles.
The original building had two floors. Each floor had five work rooms for practical classes. Each room had a weighing room and an operators’ room. Smaller rooms, such as a room for laboratory assistants, a glassworks room and an instrument workshop, opened out on the corridor connecting the four building blocks.

The main section included a lecture hall, library, sitting room and the professor’s private laboratory on the first floor. The ground floor housed the rooms for the doorkeeper and the housekeeping service, a sitting room and another private laboratory for the professor.
The basement was mainly intended for the housekeeping service and the boilers for central heating and distribution of steam as well as some generators were also located here.

The building was first occupied  in 1923, and the laboratory subsequently underwent a major renovation in 1964 carried out by the engineer Roosendaal, during which a third floor was added to the rear section on Michiel de Ruyterweg.