Page 24 - Studio International - March 1968

concepts of space and balance first expressed in his 'Red- Schroder House of 1924 the new conception of space
Blue Chair' of about 1918 were to prove amongst the finds its most complete expression. On the exterior the
most far-reaching of De Stijl's developments, having a distinctness of the parts is emphasized by the use of red,
profound effect on Van Doesburg and Mondrian. Van blue and yellow elements within a framework of greys,
Doesburg called the chair 'a slender space animal', 'a black and white. Van Doesburg, writing in De Stijl at the
fixed image of open spaces'. The chair is linear and time of construction, proclaimed that 'the new architec-
planar with none of Oud's emphatic reliance on single ture is anti-cubic . . . it throws the functional space cells
volumes. Lines continue beyond their points of inter- centrifugally from the core of the cube'. One has only to
section to preserve the integrity of each part within the compare the Schroder House with Robert van't Hoff's
whole, probing the space around the chair and dividing Huis ter Heide of 1916 with its clear debt to Frank Lloyd
the space within it by means of planes and lines alone. Wright, to see how the handling of space within De Stijl
Mass has been replaced by space. Rietveld's balancing of has developed towards the elimination of mass. The use
the parts within the whole is of a kind which increasingly of movable floor-to-ceiling screens allowing the five
preoccupies the painters of De Stijl—Mondrian especially. rooms of the upper storey to be opened into one
`The construction is attuned to the parts to ensure that continuously flowing space demonstrates Rietveld's state-
no part dominates or is subordinate to the others. In this ment that 'functional architecture must intensely experi-
way the whole stands freely and clearly in space, and the ence space'. If one contrasts the walls of the Schroder
form stands out from the material.' (Rietveld) House with the painting-like flatness of Oud's De Unie
From its inception De Stijl was intended to be universal Café facade of 1925 one becomes aware of Rietveld's
in its application and international in its membership. involvement with trying to nullify the opposition of
By 1919 Van Doesburg, the catalyst of the movement, interior and exterior space.
was in contact with artists in France, Italy and Belgium. When in 1924 Van Doesburg began to produce his
Mondrian returned to Paris the same year, where in 1920 enormously vigourous 'counter-compositions' effecting
Léonce Rosenberg published Mondrian's General Principles `the neutralization of positive and negative by the
of Plastic Equivalence. In it he speaks of balance as the un- diagonal and as far as colour is concerned by the dis-
derlying possibility of all opposing forces in life, of mascu- sonant', a development he labelled Elementarism, he
line and feminine, of nature and man. This balance of undermined one of the basic tenets of neo-plasticism
individually opposing forces within a whole was termed whereby both the opposing elements and their balance
`the new beauty' and was expressed compositionally were to be expressed compositionally. The kind of opposi-
through vertical and horizontal lines and planes. tion which Van Doesburg develops no longer has over-
`That which is immutable is above all misery and tones of positive and negative. His forces have assumed a
happiness: it is balance. By the immutable within us we new dynamic identity no longer in keeping with Mon-
are identified with all existence; the mutable destroys our drian's 'equivalent duality, opposing and neutralizing'.
balance, limits us and separates us from all that is other The opposing forces must not lose their differences of
than ourselves ... kind if both the expression of their differences and their
`The coloured planes and lines, as much by position and balance is to be achieved compositionally. Mondrian left
dimensions as by colour values, only plastically express De Stijl in 1925 to continue his researches into neo-
relationships, and not forms... plasticism.
`It is necessary to reduce the individual and put forward The most convincing proof of Van Doesburg's impor-
Below, design for a private
hotel by Van Doesburg, the universal in order to obtain an equivalent duality, tance to De Stijl as its catalyst is the fact that when he
Van Eesteren and Rietveld, opposing and neutralizing...' died in 1931 the movement as such ceased to exist.
1922. Colour-study by Van It was Léonce Rosenberg again who in 1923 exhibited Despite its aim to be international its most important
Doesburg, from L'Architecture in Paris sketches and models by Van Doesburg, Van members were Dutch. The universally applicable nature
Vivante 1925.
Eesteren and Rietveld as representational of De Stijl's of its ideas, however, played a generally underrated role
architectural ideas. Their houses burst into the space in the development of European thinking about painting,
Below right, project for a
beach esplanade by around them, the plane replacing the box as their basic design and architecture in the decades to follow.
J. J. P. Oud, 1917. element for the articulation of space. In Rietveld's When the Bauhaus was founded in 1919 it was pervaded