Gerrit Thomas Rietveld

Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was a Dutch architect and designer best known for his pioneering role in the De Stijl movement and his radical contributions to modern design. Born in 1888, Rietveld began his career as a cabinetmaker before transitioning into architecture and embracing the principles of abstraction, geometry, and primary colors championed by De Stijl. His most iconic creation, the Red and Blue Chair (1917), broke with traditional furniture forms and embodied the movement’s ideals of simplicity and harmony. Rietveld’s architectural masterpiece, the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht, is a landmark of early modern architecture, celebrated for its flexible spatial organization and dynamic use of planes. His work laid the groundwork for later developments in modernism, emphasizing clarity, function, and a bold visual language that continues to influence contemporary design.