The Kessels Fonds is an exceptional archive of almost 8,000 photographs on the themes of architecture, industry and craftsmanship in Belgium between 1930 and 1960. The work of the photographer Willy Kessels, the majority of these photographs were commissioned by architects, entrepreneurs, captains of industry, publishing houses and food and pharmaceutical companies. The collection also includes artistic works representative of the avant-garde movement of the interwar period, including Kessels' famous photomontages. The selection presented here consists of 4,481 negatives conserved at CIVA, of which 140 come from the Archives et Bibliothèque d'Architecture (Architecture Archives and Library) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Most are in the form of monochrome silver gelatine-bromide negatives on glass plate but there are also some colour chromogenic negatives on plastic film.
For any order of high resolution images from the CIVA collection please contact the archives department using the form available through this link. Please give the inventory number for each order.