Stijl, De

Stijl, De. Literally The Style. Supposedly derived from Semper's Der Stil (1861–3), erroneously believed to advocate Materialism and Functionalism, it was a Dutch artistic movement and name of a journal founded by van Doesburg in 1917. Other members included the painter Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), Rietveld, Oud, and van't Hoff. It was influenced by Cubism, by Neo-Plasticism, and by a Calvinistic concern with objectivity, simplicity, and truth, and, like many C20 movements, was antihistorical and antagonistic to tradition. It proposed an abstracted clarity of expression, wholly divorced from Nature, advocated straight lines, pure planes, right angles, primary colours, and decomposed cubes, and was one of the most powerful influences on architecture between the World Wars, especially on the Bauhaus and the International Modern Movement. Early architectural works of the De Stijl group included van't Hoff's Huis ter Heide, Utrecht (1916—clearly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright's work), Oud's projected but unrealized distillery at Purmerend (1919), and van Eesteren's and van Doesburg's axonometric studies for a house (1923). However, the paradigm of De Stijl architecture was the celebrated Schröder House, Utrecht, by Rietveld (1921–4), with its slab-like elements, flat roof, primary colours, and angular construction. Other architects influenced by De Stijl were Mies van der Rohe (especially his Barcelona Pavilion of 1928–9), Eisenman, and Portoghesi.

Bibliography

M. Friedman (ed.) (1982);
Jaffé (1956);
Overy (1969);
Overy et al. (1988);
Padovan (2002);
Petersen (ed.) (1968);
Stijl (1998);
Jane Turner (1996);
Troy (1983);
Warncke (1994);
Zevi (1974)