The past creating the future

Delft has been a world leader in science and technology for centuries. A place where theoretical science, technology, design and business have often inspired and supported each other. The businessman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) established a model of Delft innovation when he earned the title ‘father of microbiology’ with the crucial help of a microscope that he designed. Since the nineteenth century, science, technology and business have also increasingly benefited from a symbiotic relationship with the arts and design in a way that has become characteristic of Delft. 

Not surprisingly, then, the city is now also home to many businesses – from venerable to start-up – and a great variety of educational institutions, most notably, of course, Delft University of Technology, or TU Delft. Extending approximately 1 kilometre from the edge of the old city to the southeast, the impressive, spacious and green campus of TU Delft is convenient to a variety of public transport networks and is laced with cycle paths. Two railway stations, the urban and regional network of motorways and the city centre are all close at hand.