In 1959, the avant-garde organisation of modern architects CIAM was dissolved at their last congress in Otterlo, the Netherlands. As an alternative to CIAM and to secure the continuity of its international exchanges, Jaap Bakema established a correspondence network: the Post Box for the Development of the Habitat. The idea was as simple as it was effective: everybody could send in materials, designs or ideas they wished to share related to the topic of habitat, that is modern architecture, housing and city planning. Bakema would collect these contributions and distribute them by way of a newsletter. ‘Postman Bakema’, as he signed himself, produced 18 such newsletters until 1971.​ The Post Box correspondence archive is now part of the Bakema archive held at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

The interactive interface allows visitors to consult the series of newsletters and the very items from the correspondence archive. It is possible to retrace crucial parts of the international networks of avant-gardes active during the 1960s,especially Team 10 and the Japanese metabolists. The archival documents range from special contributions made by Josep Coderch, Oskar Hansen, Yona Friedman and Hans Hollein and many more, to materials from various organisations including the United Nations, UNESCO and architecture schools like TU Delft, ETH Zurich, Harvard, and MIT.

Note: The Interactive Visualisation: The Correspondence Network of Jaap Bakema is a prototype developed within the framework of the Virtual CIAM Museum Project by the Jaap Bakema Study Centre. Please note that this version is still in the initial phase.