The Gemeenlandshuis and the Old Church, Delft, Summer byCornelis Springer, 1877A map of Delft in 1649, byJoan Blaeu
The city of Delft came into being beside a canal, the 'Delf', which comes from the worddelven, meaning to delve or dig, and this led to the name Delft. At the elevated place where this 'Delf' crossed the creek wall of the silted up river Gantel, a Count established hismanor, probably around 1075. Partly because of this, Delft became an important market town, the evidence for which can be seen in the size of its central market square.
Having been a rural village in the early Middle Ages, Delft developed into a city, and on 15 April 1246,Count Willem II granted Delft itscity charter. Trade and industry flourished. In 1389 the Delfshavensche Schie canal was dug through to the riverMaas, where the port ofDelfshaven was built, connecting Delft to the sea.
Until the 17th century, Delft was one of the major cities of the then county (and later province) ofHolland. In 1400, for example, the city had 6,500 inhabitants, making it the third largest city afterDordrecht (8,000) andHaarlem (7,000). In 1560, Amsterdam, with 28,000 inhabitants, had become the largest city, followed by Delft, Leiden and Haarlem, which each had around 14,000 inhabitants.
In 1536, a large part of the city was destroyed by the great fire of Delft.
The town's association with theHouse of Orange started whenWilliam of Orange (Willem van Oranje), nicknamedWilliam the Silent (Willem de Zwijger), took up residence in 1572 in the former Saint-Agatha convent (subsequently called the Prinsenhof). At the time he was the leader of growing national Dutch resistance against Spanish occupation, known as theEighty Years' War. By then Delft was one of the leading cities ofHolland and was equipped with the necessarycity walls to serve as a headquarters. In October 1573, an attack by Spanish forces was repelled in theBattle of Delft.
When William was shot dead on 10 July 1584 byBalthazar Gerards in the hall of the Prinsenhof (now thePrinsenhof Museum), the family's traditional burial place inBreda was still in the hands of the Spanish. Therefore, he was buried in the DelftNieuwe Kerk (New Church), starting a tradition for the House of Orange that has continued to the present day.
Around this time, Delft also occupied a prominent position in the field of printing.
A number of Italian glazed earthenware makers settled in the city and introduced a new style. The tapestry industry also flourished when famous manufacturer François Spierincx moved to the city. In the 17th century, Delft experienced a new heyday, thanks to the presence of an office of theDutch East India Company (VOC) (opened in 1602) and the manufacture ofDelft Blue china.
Egbert van der Poel:A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654The "new" gunpowder store "Kruithuis", built in 1660 on the water of theDelftse Schie for public safety, today in use as a clubhouse
The Delft Explosion, also known in history as the Delft Thunderclap, occurred on 12 October 1654[12] when agunpowder store exploded, destroying much of the city. More than a hundred were killed and thousands were injured.[13]
About 30 t (29.5long tons; 33.1short tons) of gunpowder were stored inbarrels in amagazine in a formerClaristconvent in the Doelenkwartier district, where the Paardenmarkt is now located. Cornelis Soetens, the keeper of the magazine, opened the store to check a sample of the powder and a huge explosion followed. Fortunately, many citizens were away, visiting a market inSchiedam or a fair inThe Hague.
Today, the explosion is primarily remembered for killingRembrandt's most promising pupil,Carel Fabritius, and destroying nearly all his works.
Delft artistEgbert van der Poel painted several pictures of Delft showing the devastation.
The gunpowder store (Dutch: Kruithuis) was subsequently re-housed, a 'cannonball's distance away', outside the city, in a new building designed by architectPieter Post.[14]
The city centre retains a large number of monumental buildings, while in many streets there arecanals of which the banks are connected by typical bridges, altogether making this city a notable tourist destination.[15]
Historical buildings and other sights of interest include:
Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), constructed between 1381 and 1496. It contains the Dutch royal family'sburial vault which, between funerals, is sealed with a 5,000 kg (11,020 lb) cover stone.
The painterJohannes Vermeer (1632–1675) was born in Delft. Vermeer used Delft streets and home interiors as the subject or background in his paintings.[15]Several other famous painters lived and worked in Delft at that time, such asPieter de Hoogh,Carel Fabritius,Nicolaes Maes, Gerard Houckgeest and Hendrick Cornelisz. van Vliet. They were all members of theDelft School. The Delft School is known for its images of domestic life and views of households, church interiors, courtyards, squares and the streets of Delft. The painters also produced pictures showing historic events, flowers, portraits for patrons and the court as well as decorative pieces of art.
Delft supports creative arts' companies. From 2001 theBacinol [nl], a building that had been disused since 1951, began to house small companies in the creative arts sector.[22] Its demolition started in December 2009, making way for the new railway tunnel in Delft. The occupants of the building, as well as the name 'Bacinol', moved to another building in the city. The name Bacinol relates toDutch penicillin research during WWII.
TheUNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, providing postgraduate education for people from developing countries, draws on the strong tradition inwater management andhydraulic engineering of the Delft university.
The Hague University of Applied Sciences has a building on the Delft University of Technology campus. It opened in 2009[25] and offers several bachelor's degrees for the Faculty of Technology, Innovation & Society.
Inholland University of Applied Sciences also has a building on the Delft University of Technology campus. Several bachelor's degrees for the Agri, Food & Life Sciences faculty and the Engineering, Design and Computing faculty are being taught at the Delft campus.
ThePlantagegeer, one of Delft's several smaller city parks
East of Delft lies a relatively large nature and recreation area called the "Delftse Hout" ("Delft Wood").[26] Through the forest lie bike, horse-riding and footpaths. It also includes a vast lake (suitable for swimming and windsurfing), narrow beaches, a restaurant, and community gardens, plus camping ground and other recreational and sports facilities. (There is also a facility for renting bikes from the station.)
Inside the city, apart from a central park, there are several smaller town parks, including "Nieuwe Plantage", "Agnetapark", "Kalverbos".There is also theBotanical Garden of the TU and anarboretum in Delftse Hout.
Self portrait of Jacob Willemsz Delff and his family, ca. 1590Jan Vermeer van Delft, 1656portrait of Hugo Grotius, 1631Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, ca. 1635Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek, ca. 1680Martinus Beijerinck, 1931Betsy PerkStien Kaiser, 1968Ria Stalman, 1982
Nuna is a series of crewed solar-powered vehicles, built by students at the Delft University of Technology, that won theWorld solar challenge in Australia seven times in the last nine competitions (in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2013, 2015 and 2017).[37]
The so-called "Superbus" project aims to develop high-speed coaches capable of speeds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph) together with the supporting infrastructure including special highway lanes constructed separately next to the nation's highways; this project was led by Dutch astronaut professorWubbo Ockels of the Delft University of Technology.
Members of both Delft Student Rowing ClubsProteus-Eretes and Laga have won many international trophies, including Olympic medals, in the past.
Formula Student Team Delft is a student racing team that has won the Formula Student competition format in Germany three times in a row, their workplace is located along the shie.[38]
The Human Power Team Delft & Amsterdam, a team consisting mainly of students from the Delft University of Technology, has won The World Human Powered Speed Challenge (WHPSC) four times. This is an international contest forrecumbents in the US state of Nevada, the aim of which is to break speed records.[39] They set theworld record of 133.78 kilometres an hour (83.13 mph) in 2013.
Trains stopping at these stations connect Delft with, among others, the nearby cities ofRotterdam andThe Hague, as often as every five minutes, for most of the day.
There are several bus routes from Delft to similar destinations.Trams frequently travel between Delft andThe Hague andLeidschendam.
The whole city center and adjacent areas are a paid on-street parking area. In 2018, with the day parking fee of 29.5 Euro, it was the most expensive on-street parking area in the Netherlands, with the city centers ofDeventer andDordrecht being second and third, respectively.[43]
^Huerta, Robert D.:Giants of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge during the Age of Discovery. (Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press, 2003)
^Snyder, Laura J.:Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing. (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015,ISBN978-0393352887)
^Ruestow, Edward G.:The Microscope in the Dutch Republic: The Shaping of Discovery. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
^Fournier, Marian:The Fabric of Life: The Rise and Decline of Seventeenth-Century Microscopy. (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996,ISBN978-0801851384)
^Artenstein, Andrew W.:The discovery of viruses: advancing science and medicine by challenging dogma. (International Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 16, Issue 7, July 2012, pages: e470-e473).doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2012.03.005. Andrew W. Artenstein: "By 1895 Beijerinck had returned to academia after leaving theAgricultural School for a 10-year stint in industrial microbiology in Delft, the South Holland birthplace ofvan Leeuwenhoek, one of the founding fathers of microbiology. During his first years at theTechnical University of Delft, Beijerinck resumed the research ontobacco mosaic disease that he had started while working withMayer. Even then, he had appreciated that the affliction was microbial in nature, although he felt that the actual agents had yet to be discovered. Beijerinck's investigations at Delft proved fruitful; he not only confirmed the infectivity of thecontagium vivum fluidum—soluble living germ—despite filtration, but he importantly demonstrated that unlike bacteria, the culprit of tobacco disease of plants was incapable of independent growth, requiring the presence of living, dividing host cells in order to replicate."
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