Who is Gerrit Rietveld?
“I have been fascinated by the work of Rietveld all of my career, his designs still influence my own work to this day. Like Rietveld, I began my career as an apprentice cabinet maker where I developed a reputation for valuing precision in the construction of furniture and cabinetry. Rietveld’s use of simplified joints and lines and exploiting the precision of the intersects and planes was something I had always appreciated as an element to achieve the mass production of high quality affordable pieces.”
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was born in 1888, in Utretch, Netherlands. He lived and worked there all his life. Rietveld trained as a cabinetmaker in his father’s business and also worked as a draughtsman for C.J Begeer, a jeweller in Utretch.
Around 1906 he attended classes given by the architect P.C.J Klaarhamer. His contact with Klaarhamer, was of great importance for Rietveld’s development, for it was through this contact that he learnt of recent national and international trends in architecture and the applied arts.
He also worked as a goldsmith while completing his schooling, and started his own cabinetmaking business in Utrecht in 1911.
Early in his career, in 1918, Rietveld gained a position among the group ‘De Stijl’ - ‘The Style’. This new movement, co-founded by painters Piet Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg, promoted utopian ideals, members believing in the birth of a new age in the wake of World War One.
From 1917 to 1931, De Stijl, also known as neoplasticism, was a famous modern art form that valued a start toon and simplicity. Clean lines, right angles, and primary colors characterized this aesthetic and art movement expressed via architecture and painting.
Rietveld designed the ‘Red and Blue Chair’ in 1917. The original chair was unpainted and handmade in his workshop for his own use. Attached to the underside of the seat was a printed paper label that read:
“When I sit down, I do not want to sit like my flesh would want me to be seated, but as my intellect or spirit would want to be seated, as if woven together”
He designed the chair with mass production in mind, and the dimensions of the chair varied significantly. Although the lines of the chair expressed the aim of sustaining the sitter spiritually as well as physically, the sculptural qualities of the chair caused it to be considered as a work of modernism art. It was only in 1923, that Rietveld’s chair was actually painted-with a red back, blue seat and yellow front. It was in fact a three dimensional version of Mondrian’s painting ‘Composition of Red, Blue and Yellow’.
This chair is revolutionary. It is composed out of a dramatic interplay of straight lines to form patterns. The lines produce form by enclosing space, an armchair reduced to its essential planes and angles. The design elements create an abstract spatiality in which the use of colour makes an essential contribution to the process of interpretation and perception of the tangible form. Rietveld’s chair revealed a new evaluation of relationships.
It made such an impact because of its ability to focus our senses, to make us alert and aware. Rietveld was not interested in the conventional ideals of comfort, he wished to keep the sitter physically and mentally ‘toned up’. The chair had us think about our relationship to space, colour and form, liking our relationship to the world in order to experience true comfort. The artists of the De Stijl movement worked on the principle that all art had to have "dynamic equilibrium”. By Rietveld reducing the chair’s artistic vocabulary to simple geometric elements, meant that sitters could only be truly comfortable by immersing themselves within the floating space of the chair, engulfing their senses to truly identify what it means to sit, and the experience it brings to the individual. Rietveld writes that his aim was that the “work in its entirety must be able to stand freely and brightly on its own two feet, and the form must triumph over the material.”
Rietveld was also an architect, designing the famous ‘Schroder House’ in 1924. Just like his furniture, his architecture also carries the same ‘De Stijl’ spirit into a larger integrated whole. Many argue that Rietveld’s Schroder House is the only true De Stijl building that was fully realised.
The main living rooms of the Schroder House are on the second floor, with more private rooms on the ground floor. However, Rietveld’s house has an open plan and a relationship to nature, focusing on the importance of space. The entire second floor is equipped with sliding partitions that can be closed to define separate rooms, or pushed back to create open space, broken into units only by furniture. Outside, the railings, free-floating walls and long rectangular windows also represent this shifting quality, giving the effect of cubic units breaking up before the viewer’s eye. These panels seem to slide across each other on the façade like movable panels. The Schroder House is an architectural monument, but also characterises Rietveld’s unique design perceptions, shown throughout all his works.
One such idea involved sliding walls on the first floor. By day, this was an open space, but in the evening, the Schröder family could split it up into three separate rooms. There was one room for the daughters, another for the son, and a living room with a table and stove, giving everyone some privacy.
The Rietveld Schroder House in Utrecht was commissioned by Ms Truus Schröder-Schräder in 1924. She resided in the home with her three children and later on with Rietveld until her death in 1985. Rietveld lived in the home from 1957 until his death in 1964.
The Rietveld Schroder House was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000 where it is protected for future generations to appreciate and enjoy. Long before the development of the Rietveld Schroder House, Rietveld was exploring the principals of the De Stijl art movement in three dimensions with the development of his iconic furniture best characterised his Red and Blue chair. There countless other examples of these explorations.
Rietveld also designed furniture that was placed in the interior - such as ‘The Schroder Table’.
Rietveld’s ‘ZigZag’ chair, designed in 1934. Many believe the ZigZag Chair was a direct result of Theo Van Doesburg's call for the introduction of "oblique" lines to rectify the inherent tension between both vertical and horizontal elements that permeated interior spaces. Rietveld's original of the ZigZag Chair was constructed of oak and brass fittings, and was commissioned by Metz & Company, Amsterdam until 1955. The ZigZag chair was a complete departure from all previous chairs. It has no legs, it is made of planes only, and the supporting part is diagonal. It can be used as a stacking chair, and it requires a minimum of space. It was a chair to in fact, articulate space. The chair is a pure statement of modernist seating and expresses the cantilever principle in a clear form.
He also experimented with ‘Crate Furniture’, designed for mass production and assembly at home. His Crate furniture offered useful, inexpensive seating with basic construction and cheap materials.
Other works of Rietvelds include his table lamp and the Steltman Chair. The asymmetrical Steltman chair was designed for the Steltman jewellery house and has the open composition of horizontals and verticals lines so characteristic of Rietveld. The Steltman was available both in a left-handed and a right-handed design.
His Hanging Lamp is also a beautiful example of his design ability. Each element creates vertical and horizontal bands of light. Rietveld intended the fixture to be compatible with his furniture and the complex color schemes of his interiors.
Rietveld said "I am constantly concerned…with this extraordinary idea of the awakening of the consciousness." Rietveld’s designs, in particular the ‘Red and Blue Chair’ were based on the harmony of surface and form, simplicity, line, shape, colour but also the process of interpretation and perception of the tangible form in a conceptual extension that reveals new relationships for the individual and their universe.
“Gerrit Rietveld produced an extensive portfolio of work, many of which are still produced today. His simple yet clever and well resolved forms continue to inspire me.”
Also inspired by Rietvelds work is the monohook, a beautifully crafted hook crafted from aluminium and oiled timber.
