Library

This collection comprises some 30,000 works, old and recent, concerning the history of architecture and construction techniques, urban planning and urban history. It also includes many rare Belgian and foreign collections of plates, documentary files as well as an exceptional collection of journals on the subjects of architecture, urban planning and the applied arts published in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, consisting of some 300 titles.

Following the incorporation of the Sint-Lukasarchief into the CIVA Foundation in 2016, the collections of the Sint-Lukasarchief library are being progressively moved and integrated within the collections of the library of the CIVA Foundation’s collection of modern architecture. This integration was completed in the first months of 2019. It is thus no longer possible to consult them in the former premises of the Sint-Lukasarchief in Schaerbeek. Please contact the CIVA Library to find out more.

The library staff will willingly assist you in carrying out your research. Since not all of the various online catalogues are complete yet, please contact us before your visit if you wish to have access to specific documents or to carry out a particular research to enable us to prepare the documentation.

Registration is required to have access to the reading room and to consult the documents:

• Consultations occur exclusively on the premises, and no loans are made.

• It is forbidden to drink, eat or smoke in the library.

• The libraries are work and study places in which silence must be respected. Telephones or similar appliances must be switched off or set to silent mode.

• Handbags, rucksacks, suitcases and other bulky items must be left in the cloakroom (secure lockers) at the entrance to the library.

• The reader undertakes to look after the documents and to handle them with the utmost care. Certain fragile documents may only be reproduced by the library staff.