Page 49 - Studio International - April 1972

UK when the Schröder House was built, Le Corbusier Red-Blue Chair 1918
G. Rietveld
had already put behind him innumerable
commentary projects including a breathtaking design for 2 G. Rietveld
artists' studios (191o), the Dom-ino houses Sideboard 1919
(1914) and his scheme for a vertical Garden City 3 Le Corbusier
Stephen Gardiner (1922). What one sees in Rietveld's work is an Villa Savoye
and Anthony Everitt, amalgam of influences, a picture of an architect Photo: Michael Manser Associates
with 'A note on Rietveld swept off his feet, perhaps, by all the
as a sculptor' by extraordinary happenings around him. One sees
William Tucker his father—most plainly in the painstaking
structure of a chair (the apprentice trying to
understand his craft); one sees, too, the curves
of tradition flattened out by the pressures of
[RIETVELD AT THE HAYWARD; 'SEVEN EXHIBITIONS'
Cubism; one sees Mondrian in the primary
AT THE TATE; MICHAEL MOON AT WADDINGTON'S;
colours, one sees a constant argument in progress
HENRY MUNDY AT KASMIN; BRENDAN NEILAND AT
between past and future. What one does not see
ANGELA FLOWERS; BROWER HATCHER AT KASMIN;
quite so easily is Rietveld.
JOHN STEZAKER AT NIGEL GREENWOOD.]
This architect's buildings, like his furniture,
are most extraordinary. They suggest a person
who was striving after the originality and
inventiveness of the period, of people like
For a moment—but not for much longer—an Wright and Le Corbusier, and of, taken as a
early Rietveld design looks like the modern whole, the De Stijl group, of which Mondrian,
architecture of the twenties and thirties, recalls van Doesburg, van der Leck and others were
those façades that were as fresh as new shirts, founder members. But no personal aesthetic of
that white style which threaded its way through importance seems to have followed from
France, Germany and England. Then you look Rietveld's search for an order and a method :
again. No, you were wrong. The simplicity is observing all the pieces of his period, it seems
missing—the pure, seemingly casual lines, for he was was unable to pick up what he needed to
instance, which held so much of that find a coherent way of expressing himself
architecture together. The structural drive simply and honestly. Take the sideboard. This
which lay behind those innocent appearances is has all the appearances of the functional
also missing; and so is the spaciousness, the principles that supported the style, of the
startling relationships of space, the ingenious structure which the architecture of the time
innovations which made Le Corbusier's studio strongly stressed—and rightly so, for there is no
house for Ozenfant (1922) and his Maison La building without structure. The sideboard does
Roche (1923) take off like rockets into a new age. precisely this—obedient to current movements,
You look again. Is there a Japanese influence ? it stresses the structure. But for what purpose ?
A hint of Art Nouveau ? Or is there—could there To parade an aesthetic ? It seems so since the
be—Charles Rennie Mackintosh behind the deliberate and laborious expression of every
scenes ?—behind that red and blue chair, or the piece of the construction is entirely unnecessary:
baby chair, or the famous sideboard piece ? It's the ends of the wood perform no job other than
not impossible. After all, the furniture and catching dust or bruising hands and knees.
interior of Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House There is no structural or functional excuse
(1905) both bear the unmistakable fingerprints for projecting bits of wood in this way. The
of the remarkable Scottish inventor. Indeed, sideboard must, therefore, be regarded as a
Wright's chairs round the dining room table decorative, rather than a commonsensical,
look like a straight copy of the upright piece—disturbing rather than restful. The same
Mackintosh design: there are the same thing is true of Rietveld's chairs. More
exaggerations and elongations, there is the concerned with abstractions, more concerned
suggestion that the designer might (like El with graphics—yes, one could say that—than
Greco) have a fault in his eyesight—there is the with practicalities like sitting and taking time
faint touch of Art Nouveau, so fashionable at off, the high-back chair looks as forbidding as
the time. It was still fashionable in Rietveld's it is uncomfortable. No chair should look
time. Le Corbusier rejected it out of hand— forbidding; it should certainly not be
imitative of Nature, decorative, for the French uncomfortable. Marcel Brueur's tubular steel
architect it trapped nothing of Nature's spirit chair with its wicker back— probably the best
and the random order which eastern designers design from any modern architect—is both
had sought to honour in their gardens. Wright welcoming and comfortable. In Rietveld's
did not reject Art Nouveau, however—at least furniture one begins to sense a fatal confusion of
not entirely. And nor, it would seem, did art forms, the kind of confusion which afflicts
Rietveld. those who have not yet made up their minds
But there were other factors at work. Rietveld where their real ability or interest lies. Because
was the son of a cabinet maker, and he had done of this a mixture of aims is expressed—colour,
time under his father. Then there was Mondrian tradition, contemporary media, architectural
and the other cubist influences — Le Corbusier principles—which end in aesthetic and
certainly cannot be forgotten. By 1924, the year functional collisions. Frank Lloyd Wright, like

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