Gerrit Rietveld
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (* June 24, 1888 in Utrecht, † June 25, 1964 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch architect and designer. He became famous for his involvement in the artist group De Stijl.
Training
Rietveld worked as a master carpenter, first in the family business. He acquired in evening classes His architectural knowledge.
Rietveld and De Stijl
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld developed from a master joiner into one of the most important architects and designers of the De Stijl group.
The artist group De Stijl was formed by an eponymous Dutch Journal for Visual Arts, edited by Theo van Doesburg and appeared 1917-1932. Influential Rietveld was mainly due to the Rietveld Schröder House ( in Utrecht) and the Red - Blue Chair. Also at the Bauhaus his ideas were taken up.
Main features of its incurred under the influence of De Stijl works are the strict geometry and the reduction of color to the primary colors yellow, red and blue. They represent an attempt to bring together fine art, design and architecture, which up to a certain extent led to a genre -busting aesthetic.
The Red- Blue Chair
He developed the Red and Blue Chair in 1917 in its basic form and built it in 1918 in a first embodiment, with side panels under the arms and without colored version. Published in 1919, Rietveld a picture of this chair in the journal De Stijl. In 1923 the chair was awarded its characteristic coloring in primary colors and black.
The chair is made from a board that is divided into 13 rectangular blocks of wood, two slats and two boards. This promotes industrial production. The strict geometry and the open structure to overcome shape -space problems, thereby making interior a perceptibly. In addition to the Schröder House especially this chair Rietveld made famous.
His chairs were also shown in the year of his death, at the documenta III in Kassel in 1964 in the Department of Industrial Design.