The gta Archive was established in 1967, at the same time with the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at ETH Zurich. Its founding collection was the archive of Gottfried Semper (1803–1879), the first Professor of Architecture at the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum (now ETH). After Semper’s death, his Zurich students established the Semper Museum (1880–1884), later incorporated in the architecture school library. His archive was transferred to the ETH Library in 1950, and in 1967 the newly established institute was assigned with its scientific processing. It formed the basis for collecting the estates of other important architecture professors at ETH, including Georg Lasius, Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli, Gustav Gull, Karl Moser, Otto Salvisberg, Hans Hoffmann, Alfred Roth and Bernard Hoesli. In the 1970s following the donation of the estate of Sigfried Giedion, an acquisition initiative led by Afred Roth and Martin Steinmann formed the basis of the current CIAM collections. In addition to documenting the architectural history of ETH, the gta Archive holds the estates of many other renowned Swiss German architects, as well as those of the main federal Swiss professional associations. Since 2007, the gta Archive includes the NSL Archive for landscape architecture and regional planning in Switzerland. It continues to grow.
The gta Archive’s collections reinforce the gta Institute’s research activities and viceversa. Within the gta Institute, the Archive has established collaborations with the complementary divisions gta Verlag, gta Exhibitions and gta Digital, resulting in publications, exhibitions, as well as the semantic data repository, namely the gta Research Portal.