Rietveld’s Masterpiece: Long Live De Stijl!

In 1917, the first issue of De Stijl appeared: the ‘journal for new visual art’. The ideological and experimental publication had just under a hundred subscribers, but its influence can still be felt today.

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100 years later, De Stijl is regarded as a major art movement whose artists are known worldwide: Piet Mondrian, Jan Oud, and especially the Utrecht-based artists Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck and Gerrit Rietveld. In 2017, the Centraal Museum celebrates the 100th anniversary of De Stijl with a tribute to the Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht’s international icon of De Stijl. This is part of the ‘Mondrian to Dutch Design’ year, a poster for which is also preserved in the CMU poster archive.

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Gerrit Rietveld originally trained as a furniture maker. He joined De Stijl in 1919 and later established himself as an independent architect. Rietveld gave spatial expression to the ideals of De Stijl, culminating in the iconic Rietveld Schröder House on Frederik Hendriklaan in Utrecht. The Rietveld Schröder House was the first house in the world to be built according to the principles of De Stijl: radical and innovative. To this day, the house remains a source of inspiration for architects and artists around the world.

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The exhibition Rietveld’s Masterpiece: Long Live De Stijl! takes a closer look at Rietveld’s life during the De Stijl years. Who was this man, what kind of environment did he live in, and what drove him? What inspired him to build this Dutch World Heritage Site? The exhibition paints a picture of Utrecht in the ‘turbulent’ 1920s. It also highlights Gerrit Rietveld’s circle. His contacts associated with the magazine De Stijl, as well as those in Utrecht itself—such as Truus Schröder, Willem van Leusden, Willem Maas, and Sybold van Ravesteijn—were undeniably instrumental in the development of this renowned artist and the creation of his ‘UFO of Utrecht’.

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Working on a labor of love

The exhibition Rietveld’s Masterpiece: Long Live De Stijl! ends in a Workshop. Here, artist David Bade joins visitors in building a new Rietveld Schröder House. Bade sees the Rietveld Schröder House as a ‘labour of love’: the result of an extraordinary collaboration and love. That is why he asks visitors, ‘What is your labour of love?’ In other words: who have you completed a labour of love for, or who would you like to do one for? And what labour of love have you ever received, or would you like someone to do for you? ‘Labour of love’ can be interpreted both literally and figuratively.

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Visitors respond to this question by writing or drawing. Their responses inspire David Bade’s artwork. In this way, an exuberant version of the Rietveld Schröder House gradually takes shape in the Workshop—a new artwork that will become part of the Centraal Museum’s collection. The Workshop is staffed by alumni of IBB (Instituto Buena Bista, Curaçao) and students from art schools in Utrecht. David Bade himself will be there regularly to work on his artwork and talk to visitors.