The other day I was over at the biggest construction site in Eindhoven, Strijp-S. On the south end of the site is a buiding that looks pretty crapy at the moment. It’s a building that is being partially torn down, but most of it will be restored.

From 1914 until the early 1960s, the Philips Electronics Research department (“NatLab”) was situated in that particular building.  Important (at the time) research into long wave radio, radio tubes and digital audio was done here.  This used to be a hot bed of scientific research, a capital of knowledge in the Netherlands, a place where people like Albert Einstein lectured.

The hay days of fundamental research, backed by seemingly unlimited corporate funds, are definitely over here in Eindhoven , but the legacy is still there. These days the city of Eindhoven is trying to become the design capital of Europe, and a newly restored “NatLab” building matches perfectly with that agenda.