Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas

Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas (1888–1964). Dutch designer and important De Stijl architect. He designed several items of furniture in which the elements of the structure were unequivocally expressed (e.g. the Red-Blue Chair (1918) ). From 1921 he began to work with the designer, Mrs Truus (G. A.) Schröder-Schräder (1889–1985), on the planning of the celebrated Schröder House, Prins Hendriklaan, Utrecht (completed 1924), in which De Stijl principles were applied to architecture for the first time: with its adaptable interior spaces, removable partitions, asymmetry, white slabs, and large areas of glass it became a paradigm of International Modernism. Like his furniture, the house seems to be put together from pieces of card-like elements, with planes overlapping, but it is constructed almost entirely of traditional materials, and expressed its ‘modernity’ largely by metaphor. He also designed terrace-houses, Erasmuslaan (1934), and the Vreeburg Cinema (1936), both in Utrecht. With others he designed the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam (1963–72). He was a founder-member of CIAM.

Bibliography

T. Brown (1958);
Buffinga (1971);
G. Fanelli (1968);
Jaffé (1956);
Küper & Zijl (eds.) (1992);
Mulder & and Zijl (1999);
Overy (1969);
Overy et al. (1988);
Placzek (ed.) (1982);
Jane Turner (1996)