The Visual Resources Collection is a media library, archive, and audiovisual support resource. Located on the ground floor of the Architecture Building (S-11), the VRC consists of three main collections: images, recordings, and student work.
The Image Collection includes over 64,000 35mm slides and 45,000 digital images. Established in 1980 to serve the expanding image needs of the School, the collection focuses mainly on American and western European architecture from the 19th and 20th centuries. It represents more than 3,500 architects, and contains iconic views, maps, aerial photographs, cityscapes, and images related to building science and construction. Included are works by landscape architects, painters, sculptors, photographers, and designers, many of whom shaped or defined architectural movements.
In recent years, the VRC has been digitizing this core collection of slides and collecting new digital images in response to faculty requests, curriculum-based research, and the availability of new commercial sources. SoA image collections are complimented by the Department of Art & Archaeology's VR Collection, which covers prehistoric to contemporary art and architecture of the West and East. Digital images from both collections are increasingly available to search and download for research and class presentations in Almagest, Princeton's online media catalog, and ARTstor, a digital archive containing approximately one million images.
In addition to developing digital image collections, the VRC documents and preserves intellectual content generated and presented at the School of Architecture. The Sound and Video Collection - about 800 titles - includes recordings of lectures, conferences and public reviews held at the School of Architecture from 1975 to the present. These recordings are currently available upon request, and soon they will be searchable online. The Student Work Collection contains studio and thesis projects from the 1930s to the present. Projects submitted as 35mm slides in the 1980s, or more recently, as digital files, are available for study in the VRC (an online catalog is in development). Earlier student work housed in the SoA Archive is accessible with the Dean's permission.
The VRC also provides audiovisual equipment and support to SoA faculty and students using AV equipment or accessing media collections, and offers a public workstation with Adobe CS4 and film scanner, flatbed scanner, and a CD/DVD burner for course-related image scanning and editing.
