In 1918, Gerrit Rietveld designed a chair that would become a landmark in design history: the chair Red and Blue - Red Blue Chair -. At the time, its exposed, stripped-down structure was a UFO in the furniture world. The Red Blue Chair marks a singular milestone in the history of design, it is rightly considered an iconic piece of 20th century design furniture and will influence generations of designers. Even today, it continues to fascinate the greatest creators. It obviously owes much to its creator Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (1888-1964) Dutch designer, architect and cabinetmaker; an avant-garde spirit for his time.[caption id="attachment_5164" align="aligncenter" width="800"]
Gerrit Rietveld, Red Blue Chair[/caption][caption id="attachment_5165" align="aligncenter" width="800"]
Gerrit Rietveld, Red Blue Chair[/caption][caption id="attachment_5166" align="aligncenter" width="800"]
Gerrit Rietveld, Red Blue Chair[/caption]Gerrit Rietveld "fell into the pot as a child," so to speak. He thus entered his father's cabinetmaking business at the age of twelve and set up his own workshop in 1910. In the evenings, he took architectural courses from Piet Klaarhamer (1874-1954), an architect who was involved in the construction of some of Utrecht's middle-class houses, which are now listed in a "protected urban landscape area". In 1919, Gerrit Rietveld joined the avant-garde movement De Stijl (The Style). This neo-plastic movement, founded by Theo Van Doesburg in the Netherlands in 1917, theorized by Piet Mondrian - one inevitably thinks of the latter with the use of primary colors for the Red Blue Chair - claims a universal harmony in the complete integration of all the arts. In this sense, the famous chair imagined by Rietveld is emblematic of this movement. Nevertheless, for the time, the astonishing seat designed by the Dutch designer intrigues and destabilizes the aesthetes. It is difficult to find an origin, it seems to come out of nowhere. Looking at Rietveld's chair, one can think of an astonishing fusion between a primitive aesthetic coming from Black Africa, and the appearance of structures practiced by Japanese cabinetmakers. The elementary diagonals of the chair also evoke the lounge chairs of the famous Transatlantic. Some try to relate it to more familiar pieces of furniture like the long Hill House (created 1902) by Scottish designer Charles Mackintosh or Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie chair (1908).[caption id="attachment_5084" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Chair Hill House, 1902. Source: steeldomus.com[/caption][caption id="attachment_5086" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Frank Lloyd Wright, Chaise Robie 1, 1908. Now published by Cassina. Source: architonic.com[/caption]In 1918, the Red Blue Chairdesigned from 17 pieces of wood, an economy of material rarely seen at the time, thus astonished critics. This chair, which resembles an armchair, upsets the vocabulary of furniture as well as that of architecture. The design of the chair is reduced to its simplest elements: a seat and a structure. Undeniably, Rietveld's chair embodies modernity even at the time. Centuries of cabinet making are swept away in one fell swoop in favor of radical geometry! Gerrit Rietveld quickly eliminates the original sides to leave a visible structure, the back and seat do not touch each other, they are attached to bars. During 5 years, the chair whose production remains artisanal is painted in various monochromes. It is only in 1923, that it displays its primary colors that allow us today to identify it spontaneously - Red for the backrest, blue for the seat, black for the bars of the base and armrests and yellow to highlight the ends of the bars -.In constant research, Rietveld continued to experiment and later designed a series of furniture pieces that borrowed from the avant-garde aesthetic vocabulary of the Red Blue Chairand incorporated its DNA. Thus, in 1923, Rietveld designed the Military Chair. Very similar to the Red and Blue Chairseat and back "float" in space. Then he invented the Berlin chair, with a very marked geometric shape that is accompanied by a small table. A few years later, the designer worked on the bentwood technique and considered designing the Red and Blue Chair using a single piece, which he managed to do through the use of a molded sheet of plywood. The seat comprises a single sheet of wood that rests on an iron rod frame. The chair, named Beugel was shown in 1928 at the "A.B.S." exhibition of architecture, painting and sculpture at the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art in Amsterdam. For Rietveld, it is a certain culmination, the synthesis of his work on bent wood.[caption id="attachment_5095" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Military Chair, 1923. Source: art-zoo.com[/caption][caption id="attachment_5096" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Chair Berlin, 1923. Source: art-zoo.com[/caption][caption id="attachment_5097" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Beugel chair, 1927. Source: art-zoo.com[/caption]If one mentions the avant-garde masterpiece that is the Red and Blue Chair, one cannot avoid evoking the other iconic piece of the Dutch designer made between 1932 and 1934: the Zig Zag chair. A unique piece, stripped to the bone, 4 sides forming the famous Z. The Zig Zag is indeed a worthy heir to the Red and Blue Chair in Rietveld's obsessive quest to design a simple and functional piece of furniture. He can even be criticized for being rigorous to the extreme, the color code of the Red and Blue Chair absent; a Protestant value that would be expressed unconsciously in Rietveld's work? Perhaps... Still, the Zig Zag cannot leave one indifferent, like the fear of seeing the seat collapse like a house of cards as soon as one sits on it! But as with its illustrious predecessor, the line surprises and detests by its lightness its elegance, inherited from the precepts of De Stijl in the choice of perpendicular forms. We also find a fundamental idea inherited from the Dutch art manifesto: the extension of lines in space. The Red Blue Chairwith its cleats that form nerve endings, the chair Zig Zagwith its vertical, oblique and horizontal lines.[caption id="attachment_5098" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Zig Zag chair, 1932-1934. Source: koursi.com[/caption][caption id="attachment_5099" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Source: Pinterest[/caption]The Red and Blue Chair and the Zig Zag chair are both published today by Cassina, the great Milanese house that is reissuing the great design classics. Cassina began industrial production of the Red and Blue Chairin 1973. To best respect the spirit of the model and its creator, Cassina employees worked with the craftsmen and collaborators of Gerrit Rietveld, who died 9 years earlier. It is no coincidence that Cassina manufactures the Red and Blue Chair; in addition to Rietveld, the Italian company has the works of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Gaetano Pesce and closer to home, those of Philippe Starck and Konstantin Grcic. To consult the Cassina catalog is to find yourself projected into a century of design!The Red and Blue Chairand the Zig Zag chair by Gerrit Rietveld, the man who in his own words wanted his chairs to come out of a machine in one piece, have had a profound effect on design history. But who are his successors? Undoubtedly, the Zig Zag chair directly inspired the Danish designer Verner Panton in 1960 when he designed his famous chair, the Panton Chair. The first plastic chair molded in one piece, the simplicity of the form, the elegance, everything works together to find the pioneering spirit of Rietveld in the seat made by Verner Panton. [caption id="attachment_5100" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Chaise Panton by Verner Panton[/caption]The contemporary designer and Dutch compatriot of Rietveld, Piet Hein Eek (1967- ), is one of his worthy successors. Like the great master, he seeks economy of material. The oblique lines of his as-thick-as-wide-chair are curiously reminiscent of the Red Blue Chair. The younger generation sometimes even feels compelled to "kill" the image of the father Rietveld, which has become too cumbersome. Designer Maarten Baas (1978- ) thus methodically burns iconic pieces of historical design including the Red Blue Chair. His Smoke series is the starting point for a singular creative process, which specifically involves charring design pieces, then coating them with resin to solidify them. "Non-smoking" proof that the legacy Gerrit Rietveld left behind is still very much alive today![caption id="attachment_5101" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Piet Hein Eek, as-thick-as-wide-chair. Source: Pietheineek.nl[/caption][caption id="attachment_5102" align="aligncenter" width="796"]
Maarten Baas, Smoke Rietveld Redblue. Source: Pixelcreation.co.uk[/caption]
Written by François Boutard
