As early as 1912/13, the founder of the then Institute of Building History, Ernst Robert Fiechter (1875-1948), had his students make sketches and measurements of buildings in the immediate vicinity of Stuttgart. From the academic year 1920/21, he introduced the subject of building surveying into the curriculum in order to train students in visualisation with the help of practical exercises. This specialisation was continued and expanded under the direction of Harald Hanson (1900-1986). The large-format plans drawn by Hanson himself form the core of today's ifag collection. Numerous systematic photographs, especially from the 1930s and 1940s, document the condition of many cultural monuments shortly before their destruction in the Second World War. The majority of them were created in co-operation with the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and later formed a valuable basis for the subsequent reconstruction of many buildings.
After 1972, building surveys as drawings lost their central position in the curriculum. Instead, the focus shifted to the photographic and research-based examination of historical buildings. Numerous student works of this type, mostly submitted in the form of booklets and books of various formats, form the second focus of the collection.
In total, the holdings comprise around 8,500 building surveys and documentation on buildings of various typologies, primarily from south-west Germany.
The institute also preserves the results of several building research projects carried out by professors at the institute.
