Gerrit Rietveld was born in Utrecht in 1888. From the age of eleven he worked in his father's joinery workshop, and in 1917 he opened his own. That is when he made the first version of the chair he later painted red, blue, yellow and black, now known as the Red and Blue Chair. From 1919 he belonged to the De Stijl group around Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian.
In 1924 he built a house in Utrecht for Truus Schröder. Sliding partitions turn its upper floor from one open space into several rooms. The Rietveld Schröder House has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2000. Rietveld later designed the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1953) and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which his partners completed after his death.
Rietveld designed the Crate furniture in 1934 from the kind of pine boards then used for shipping furniture. It was meant to be cheap and was sold as a kit for customers to assemble themselves. In 2023 HAY reissued the collection with Rietveld Originals. It is made of FSC-certified pine in a natural finish or in black, white, iron red and london fog, and works indoors as well as in the garden. At DesignVille you will find the Crate dining chair, lounge chair, bench, sofa, dining table and low tables, together with seat pads and cushions.
Photo: © HAY (hay.com)
