Wim Rietveld
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Wim Rietveld (1924–1985) was a Dutch industrial and
furniture designer This is a list of notable people whose primary occupation is furniture design. A * Alvar Aalto (1898–1976) * Eero Aarnio (born 1932) * Robert Adam (1728–1792) * Thomas Affleck (1745–1795) * Franco Albini (1905–1977) * Davis Allen ( ...
. His father was the
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and designer
Gerrit Rietveld Gerrit Rietveld (24 June 1888 – 25 June 1964) was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. Early life Rietveld was born in Utrecht on 24 June 1888 as the son of a joiner. He left school at 11 to be apprenticed to his father and enrolled at n ...
.


Education

Wim Rietveld received a technical education and began his career as a constructor of large equipment; among others, he was employed at Servo Balans, a company specialized in industrial
weighing In science and engineering, the weight of an object is a quantity associated with the gravitational force exerted on the object by other objects in its environment, although there is some variation and debate as to the exact definition. Some sta ...
equipment. In 1950 he enrolled as one of the first students of a newly established course in industrial design at the
Royal Academy of Art The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
in
The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...
.


Design career

Because of the high quality of his graduation project, Rietveld was invited by
W. H. Gispen Willem Hendrik Gispen (7 December 1890, in Amsterdam – 10 May 1981, in The Hague) was a Dutch industrial designer, best known for his Giso lamps and serially produced functionalist Seamless pipe, steel-tube furniture. He studied de ...
to start working for his Gispen furniture company. At that moment, postwar reconstruction was in full force in the Netherlands, and materials were scarce. Wim Rietveld was employed at Gispen from 1953 till 1957. He was talented in combining functionality and aesthetics in his furniture, and was able to devise simple production techniques. He was a typically Dutch designer in his love for construction and functionality. Unlike other typical Gispen furniture, Rietveld's designs did not use hollow tubular
steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...
, but much thinner massive steel, which looks less conspicuous and is easier (and cheaper) to bend. Wim Rietveld also introduced
foam rubber Foam rubber (also known as cellular rubber, sponge rubber, or expanded rubber) is rubber that has been made with a foaming agent so that its structure is an air-filled matrix. Commercial foam rubber is generally made of synthetic rubber, natural ...
padding and pressed
plywood Plywood is a composite material manufactured from thin layers, or "plies", of wood veneer that have been stacked and glued together. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards, which include plywood, medium-density fibreboa ...
at the Gispen company. Rietveld worked on several well-known Gispen furniture pieces, including the President office chair, and several light fixtures. He enjoyed a lot of artistic freedom at Gispen. His most well-known design is probably the Mondial chair, which he devised together with his father, Gerrit Rietveld. The stackable and linkable, delicate K-shaped chair was specifically created for
Expo 58 Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (; ), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Belgium, from 17 April to 19 October 1958. It was the first major world's fair registered under the Bureau Internati ...
in Brussels. It was intended to be fully executed in
aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...
, but apart from a few prototypes this was not followed through at that time, as that was not yet technically possible. Gispen produced the chair's seat in polyester, against Rietveld's wishes. Shortly afterwards, Rietveld quit his position at Gispen. Next, Rietveld started working for De Cirkel (a daughter of
Ahrend Arnold is a masculine German, Dutch and English given name. It is composed of the Germanic elements ''arn'' "eagle" and ''wald'' "power, brightness". The name was first recorded in Francia from about the 7th century, at first often conflated wi ...
), a company that also produced steel furniture, where he became a colleague of Friso Kramer. There, Rietveld produced his Pyramid chair and worked on the Reply drawing table together with Kramer. Rietveld was employed at De Cirkel until 1970. He also worked as a freelancer on various assignments. One of his contractors was Vicon, a producer of farming equipment, from 1959 till 1979. Together with Wim Groeneboom, Rietveld designed the first Amsterdam metro, he drew the Dutch 'standard
bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...
' (1966), and he was contracted by companies such as
Werkspoor Werkspoor N.V. was the shortened, and later the official name of the Nederlandsche Fabriek van Werktuigen en Spoorwegmaterieel. It was a Dutch machine factory, known for rolling stock, (ship) steam engines, and diesel engines. It was a successo ...
(train interiors) and Inventum (home appliances).


Teaching

From 1960 till 1975, Rietveld was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and from 1970 till 1979 at the Technische Hogeschool (the later University of Technology) in
Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...
, where he held a professorship from 1973.


Literature

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rietveld, Wim 1924 births 1985 deaths Artists from Utrecht (city) Dutch furniture designers Dutch industrial designers Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni Gerrit Rietveld