Gerrit Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964) was a famous Dutch architect and furniture designer. A pioneer of modern design. Associated with the “De Stijl” movement, his progressive approach to architecture and furniture made a huge impact in the Netherlands and internationally. De Stijl still serves as inspiration to the modern-day Dutch Design movement. The movement was founded in 1917 including: Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondriaan and Bart van der Leck. Rietveld had joined this movement as an architect and furniture designer.

Military Series

In 1923, Rietveld designed the Military series for the Catholic Military Home in Utrecht. In this series, using bolts and nuts to connect wooden elements rather than the traditional wooden dowel pins. Robust, strong and notable due to the use of cross beams and contrasting colors. The table top is made of solid oak that is painted natural, whitewash, white, black or red. The frame whose ends are finished with a contrasting color is available in white, black or red or grey.

Lensvelt is the exclusive distributor of the Military Series by Gerrit Rietveld since 2017

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Dutch Pavilion Cannes Film Festival 

100 Years after the invention of De Stijl, Studio Sabine Marcelis has reinterpreted Mondriaan’s iconic painting Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow (1935) as a three-dimensional experience for the Dutch Pavilion during the Cannes Film Festival, in collaboration with EYE International, the Nederlands Film Fund, and Het Nieuwe Instituut. Sabine Marcelis created a Spatial Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow. She used furniture designs by Gerrit Rietveld, Martin Visser and Radbout van Beekum. The Pavilion was awarded the special jury prize by the jury. 

The Military Series perfectly fits the presentation because its robust, strong and notable due to the use of cross beams and contrasting colors. 

In 1917, Theo van Doesburg published the first edition of De Stijl, a magazine that would launch an art movement that would become one of the most significant cultural legacies of the Netherlands in the modern era. De Stijl was characterised by simple planes and geometric forms, clear primary colours, and graphic qualities of outline and pattern in a variety of scales, from magazines to architecture. In particular, the paintings by the artist Piet Mondriaan with red, blue and yellow, bounded by black lines and white space, defined what De Stijl meant for an international audience.