Gerrit Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld was a Dutch architect and furniture designer who was born on June 24, 1888 but sadly died on June 25, 1964.

Rietveld is said to be one of the principal members of the Dutch artistic movement called 'De Stijl'. Rietveld's 'Red and Blue Chair' and 'Rietvel Schroder House' are two  of his pieces which made him famous. 

Gerrit Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair (image below) was a chair which was designed in 1918 and is said to represent one of the first explorations by the art movement De Stijl in three dimensional physical form. 

Although the chair was made in 1918, the chair was not painted till 1923. The original chair was made out of unstained beech wood.

De Stijl elements are clearly portrayed within this chair as we can see the horizontal, vertical, and primary colours are used on this chair. 

In class I was asked to make the Red and Blue chair using the plans below. The image below displays the chair in 1:10 scale on and A4 piece of paper and the measurements are in millimetres. At first I found it difficult to work out the measurements of the chair but I not too long after got to grips with it and was flying through the process of making it. I was able to quickly and accurately draw out the components I needed for the chair. After cutting out the pieces I was able to stick them together quite quickly and I was able to finish making the chair first in my class, allowing others in the class to easily see what their chairs would end up looking like.