Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) will celebrate its seventieth anniversary on Tuesday, June 23. But it could easily have been that the university had been located in Den Bosch, Maastricht or Weert. “They were also in the race,” says director and member of the TU/e art and heritage committee Alfons Bruekers. Eindhoven was chosen, partly thanks to Philips and DAF.
Alfons Bruekers studied electrical engineering at TU/e. He has been working as one of the directors at TU/e for twenty years now. He is of course celebrating the seventieth anniversary, but he delicately points out that the foundation of TU/e was laid more than ten years earlier, during the Second World War.
The University of Delft was still in occupied territory and was closed, while Eindhoven had already been liberated. “Eindhoven was in ruins because of the bombings,” Alfons explains. “But people were already thinking about how the reconstruction will proceed once we are liberated.”
The government decided to establish the Temporary Academy in Eindhoven. That was a temporary Technical College, as the university was described at the time. “It existed for a long time until the Netherlands was completely liberated.” Then Delft opened again and Eindhoven closed.
“There was fantastic terrain on offer here.”
The Temporary Academy left me wanting more. Companies in the Eindhoven region saw the importance of training in the south and started lobbying. “They tried to put Eindhoven on the map as a second place for a technical college. And they finally succeeded in 1956. We celebrate that moment.”
The lobby mainly came from DAF and Philips in Eindhoven. “They had an enormous need for young engineers for their company. But the Netherlands as a whole also needed engineers for reconstruction in all kinds of fields. From construction to chemistry and from physics to electrical engineering. So there was a lot to be said for creating an additional university branch.”
Other cities tried to attract the university of the south. “They all made a proposal, lobbied and advocated.” Eindhoven emerged as the winner. “In the end, the government chose Eindhoven. Here was the largest amount of economy and activity that could be done with technically trained young people. So you could say that your job was guaranteed. And here was a fantastic area on offer.”
It was arable land with two farms, a pub and a watermill. One part was swamp. It was a lot of open space, close to the station. “The municipality of Eindhoven had made the current site available for one guilder to establish a university. They could not refuse that offer.”
Temporary buildings were soon built. Right from the start, in 1956, lessons were given. It started with three faculties, subject areas: electrical engineering, chemistry and mechanical engineering. Today there are nine subject areas.
In the beginning it was a real male stronghold. Of the almost 250 students, women could be counted on one hand. “It was also formal. The idea was to create a separate residential area for professors on the site. That never came to fruition.”
Right from the start, architect Samuel van Embden was hired, who had a vision of the buildings that should be built for education and research. He wanted to connect all the buildings. He did that with catwalks.
“The power of innovation lies in contacts between the different disciplines. Free from rain and cold, you walk across the bridges to the other side and meet each other.”
His idea was not appreciated at first because it was very expensive. “But we still do it now with everything we build on campus. We have embraced it as one of the best ideas on campus. Connecting was his motto. This is a talk from 1956, but it is still very current.”
Over the years, TU/e supplied a total of 65,000 bright minds.
Figures about TU/e:
– 14,000 students this academic year
– 1500 students live on the university grounds
– About 7,000 researchers and employees
– More than a hundred nationalities
– 450 laboratories, ranging from small to very large
