Gerrit Rietveld
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Gerrit Rietveld (24 June 1888 – 25 June 1964) was a Dutch furniture designer and architect.


Early life

Rietveld was born in
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
on 24 June 1888 as the son of a
joiner A joiner is an artisan and tradesperson who builds things by joining pieces of wood, particularly lighter and more ornamental work than that done by a carpenter, including furniture and the "fittings" of a house, ship, etc. Joiners may work in ...
. He left school at 11 to be apprenticed to his father and enrolled at night school before working as a
draughtsman A draughtsman (British spelling) or draftsman (American spelling) may refer to: * An architectural drafter, who produced architectural drawings until the late 20th century * An artist who produces drawings that rival or surpass their other types ...
for C. J. Begeer, a jeweller in Utrecht, from 1906 to 1911.


De Stijl

By the time he opened his own furniture workshop in 1917, Rietveld had taught himself drawing, painting and model-making. He afterwards set up in business as a cabinet-maker.Fleming, John, et al. (1972) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture''; 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin; pp. 237-38 Rietveld designed his
Red and Blue Chair ''The Red and Blue Chair'' is a chair designed in 1917 by Gerrit Rietveld. It represents one of the first explorations by the De Stijl art movement in three dimensions. History The original chair was constructed of unstained beech wood and wa ...
in 1917 which has become an iconic piece of modern furniture. Hoping that much of his furniture would eventually be mass-produced rather than handcrafted, Rietveld aimed for simplicity in construction. In 1918, he started his own furniture factory, and changed the chair's colours after becoming influenced by the ''
De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
'' movement, of which he became a member in 1919, the same year in which he became an architect. The contacts that he made at ''De Stijl'' gave him the opportunity to exhibit abroad as well. In 1923,
Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in conne ...
invited Rietveld to exhibit at the
Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...
. He built the
Rietveld Schröder House The Rietveld Schröder House ( nl, Rietveld Schröderhuis) (also known as the Schröder House) in Utrecht (Prins Hendriklaan 50) was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children. She c ...
, in 1924, in close collaboration with the owner
Truus Schröder-Schräder Truus Schröder-Schräder (1889–1985) was a Dutch socialite and trained pharmacist who was closely involved with avant-garde artists and architects of the De Stijl movement. Together with Gerrit Rietveld, she built a house for herself and her t ...
. Built in
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
on the Prins Hendriklaan 50, the house has a conventional ground floor, but is radical on the top floor, lacking fixed walls but instead relying on sliding walls to create and change living spaces. The house has been a
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
since 2000. His involvement in the Schröder House exerted a strong influence on Truus' daughter,
Han Schröder Johanna Erna Else Schröder (16 July 1918 – 20 March 1992) was a Dutch architect and educator. After becoming one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, she opened her own architecture and interior design firm in Amst ...
, who became one of the first female architects in the Netherlands.


''Nieuwe Zakelijkheid''

Rietveld broke with ''De Stijl'' in 1928 and became associated with a more functionalist style of architecture, known as either ''
Nieuwe Zakelijkheid Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, translated as New Objectivity or New Pragmatism, is a Dutch period of modernist architecture that started in the 1920s and continued into the 1930s. The term is also used to denote a (brief) period in art and literature (especi ...
'' or ''
Nieuwe Bouwen Dutch architecture has played an important role in the international discourse on architecture in three eras. The first of these was during the 17th century, when the Dutch empire was at the height of its power. The second was in the first half ...
''. The same year he joined the ''
Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne The ''Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne'' (CIAM), or International Congresses of Modern Architecture, was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged across Europ ...
''. From the late 1920s he was concerned with social housing, inexpensive production methods, new materials, prefabrication and standardisation. In 1927 he was already experimenting with prefabricated concrete slabs, a very unusual material at that time. In the 1920s and 1930s, however, all his commissions came from private individuals, and it was not until the 1950s that he was able to put his progressive ideas about social housing into practice, in projects in Utrecht and Reeuwijk. Rietveld designed the
Zig-Zag Chair The Zig Zag-chair is a chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld sometime between 1930 and 1934. It is a minimalistic design without legs, made by 4 flat wooden slabs (originally in Elm, now in pine wood) that are merged in a Z-shape using dovetailed an ...
in 1934 and started the design of the
Van Gogh Museum The Van Gogh Museum () is a Dutch art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries in the Museum Square in Amsterdam South, close to the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Concertgebouw. The museum opened on ...
in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, which was finished after his death.


De Stijl revival

In 1951 Rietveld designed a retrospective exhibition about ''De Stijl'' which was held in Amsterdam, Venice and New York. Interest in his work revived as a result. In subsequent years he was given many commissions, including the Dutch pavilion for the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
(1953), the art academies in Amsterdam and Arnhem, and the press room for the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
building in Paris. Designed for the display of small sculptures at the Third International Sculpture Exhibition in Arnhem's Sonsbeek Park in 1955, Rietveld's ‘Sonsbeek Pavilion’ was rebuilt at the
Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of her ...
in 1965. Due to irreparable damages caused by regular decay, it was once again rebuilt, this time with new materials, in 2010. In order to handle all these projects, in 1961 Rietveld set up a partnership with the architects Johan van Dillen and J. van Tricht built hundreds of homes, many of them in the city of Utrecht. His work was neglected when rationalism came into vogue, but he later benefited from a revival of the style of the 1920s thirty years later.


Death

Rietveld died on 25 June 1964 in Utrecht. His son
Wim Rietveld Wim Rietveld (1924 - 1985) was a Dutch industrial and furniture designer. His father was the architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld. Education Wim Rietveld received a technical education and began his career as a constructor of large equipment ...
also became a renowned industrial designer.


Recognition

Rietveld had his first retrospective exhibition devoted to his architectural work at the Central Museum, Utrecht, in 1958. When the art academy in Amsterdam became part of the higher professional education system in 1968 and was given the status of an Academy for Fine Arts and Design, the name was changed to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in honour of Rietveld. "Gerrit Rietveld: A Centenary Exhibition" at the Barry Friedman Gallery, New York, in 1988 was the first comprehensive presentation of the Dutch architect's original works ever held in the U.S. The highlight of a celebratory “Rietveld Year” in Utrecht, the exhibition “Rietveld’s Universe” opened at the Centraal Museum and compared him and his work with famous contemporaries like Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.Rietveld’s Universe - Rietveld, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Theo van Doesburg, 20 October 2010 - 13 February 2011
Centraal Museum, Utrecht.
Two software tools, both for
code review Code review (sometimes referred to as peer review) is a software quality assurance activity in which one or several people check a program mainly by viewing and reading parts of its source code, and they do so after implementation or as an interru ...
, have been named after Gerrit Rietveld:
Gerrit Gerrit is a Dutch male name meaning "''brave with the spear''", the Dutch and Frisian form of Gerard. People with this name include: * Gerrit Achterberg (1905–1962), Dutch poet * Gerrit van Arkel (1858–1918), Dutch architect * Gerrit Badenh ...
and Rietveld.


References


External links


Rietveld Schröder Archive
on delpher.nl
Buildings of Gerrit Rietveld
on architectureguide.nl
Rietveld Originals
Rietveld's furniture designs that are still in production {{DEFAULTSORT:Rietveld, Gerrit 1888 births 1964 deaths 20th-century Dutch architects 20th-century Dutch artists Articles containing video clips Artists from Utrecht Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne members Constructivist architects De Stijl Dutch furniture designers Dutch graphic designers Dutch industrial designers Furniture makers Modernist architects Modernist architecture in the Netherlands