Bacteriological Laboratory 1895 - walkingroute TU Noord

Microbiology Laboratory
The former Microbiology Laboratory of the Delft Institute of Technology was built in 1895 in the Dutch Renaissance Revival architectural style popular at the time. It was designed by J. van Lokhorst, the government architect responsible for designing the buildings of educational and scientific institutions. Initially, the architects Gugel and Morre had been commissioned to design the building. When Victor de Stuers, who had recently been involved in a serious conflict with Gugel, heard about this, he got Van Lokhorst to perform a counter-expertise study of the quality of this plan. The Delft Institute of Technology recognised the bottlenecks in the plan as identified by Van Lokhorst and went on to engage him as the project architect. The building was extended in 1911 and once again in 1929. The wing constructed in 1911 was later demolished.

Delft School of Microbiology
This building functioned as a Microbiology Laboratory from 1897 to 1957 under the leadership of the first Professor of Microbiology at Delft: Martinus Willem Beijerinck. He was the first person to use the term ‘virus’. In the early 1980s, the building was converted into eleven apartments for a residential community. A plaque at the entrance (Nieuwelaan 1) commemorates the original function of the building and the founders of the Delft School of Microbiology