The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, for ''Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium - Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique'') is a Belgian federal institute of the

Belgian Federal Science Policy Office The Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy ( nl, Programmatorische Federale Overheidsdienst Wetenschapsbeleid; french: Service public fédéral de programmation Politique scientifique; german: Föderaler Öffentlicher Programmierungsdienst ...

(BELSPO). The institute studies and conserves the artistic and cultural assets of Belgium. Its mission consists in research and public service. The personnel of the institute consists of conservator-restorers,

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

s of art,

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in oth ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

s and many other

scientists A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophi ...

. Hilde De Clercq is the General Director of the institute.

History

The institute was established in 1948 as the (Central Iconographic Archives of National Art and the Central Laboratory of Belgian Museums, ACL). Its founder and first director was

Paul B. Coremans Paul Bernard Joseph Marie Coremans (29 April 1908 – 11 June 1965) was a Belgian scientist who advanced the fields of cultural heritage management and cultural heritage Curator, curation. He was the founder and first director of the Royal Inst ...

(1908-1965). In 1957 the ACL becomes one of the ten national scientific institutions under the name ''Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage'' (KIK-IRPA). The building of the institute, finished in 1963, was the first in the world specially designed to promote the interdisciplinary approach to works of art. The building was designed by architect Charles Rimanque based on an initial technical concept by

René Sneyers René Victor Gustave Joseph Sneyers (6 April 1918, Gembloux – 26 August 1984, Brussels) was a Belgian chemist. He succeeded Paul B. Coremans as head of the Institut royal du patrimoine artistique (IRPA). Life He gained his diploma in science ...

Departments

The institute consists of three departments: * Documentation:

inventory Inventory (American English) or stock (British English) refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a discipline primarily about specifying the sha ...

and

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

studio,

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

s, valorization and

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...

* Laboratories:

materials Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geolog ...

and technics, research on methodology of conservation and maintenance of monuments * Conservation and restoration:

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...

sculptures Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and art industry

Online artworks pages

In the images database ''BALaT'', each artwork is assigned a record number. To reference an artwork page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form: http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/ followed by the artwork's record number. For example, the artwork record number for the Ghent Altarpiece is 21, so its BALaT artwork page can be referenced as http://balat.kikirpa.be/object/21.

References

History of the institute

External links

Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage on BALaT - Belgian Art Links and Tools
{{Authority control 1948 establishments in Belgium Heritage organizations in Belgium History organisations based in Belgium Open-access archives Organisations based in Belgium with royal patronage Science and technology in Belgium

History

Departments

Online artworks pages

See also

References

External links