ork/Pictoright, Amsterdam;
tists Rights Society (ARS). New Y
tesy of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
© 2008 Ar Cour
Above Rietveld’s preliminary sketch (1957) for the Ideal Apartment in the Modern Living department, showing the color scheme of the
floor and wall coverings.
Opposite top View towards the parental sleeping area in the Ideal Apartment with the Rath & Doodeheefver wallpaper Tiès behind the cabinet
on the right wall. On the left the kitchenette part of the polyester “wet area” unit can be seen next to the dining area with the Mondial chairs.
Opposite bottom Color reconstruction of the living and dining areas in the Ideal Apartment with the Rath & Doodeheefver wallpaper
Staghorn on the facing wall. The reconstruction, by Anneliek Holland and André Koch, is based on documents in the Rietveld archive of
the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam. Rietveld’s upholstered chairs No. 142 and No. 143, designed for Artifort, are visible
at far left.
The textile exhibition, which bore a surprising resemblance to for the seat of the production model; this decision was one of
Salvador Dalí’s surrealist paintings of rock formations and deserted the causes of Wim Rietveld’s resignation from the company in
beaches, is unique in Rietveld’s oeuvre, which is better known for 1957. Gispen, which produced the chair both with armrests (no.
its strict geometric designs. 217) and without (no. 117), referred to it as the Mondial chair
The textile manufacturers and the Dutch pavilion’s board of because of its use at the world’s fair. The polyester seat was
directors were horrified, to say the least, by the work of Rietveld, offered in white, red, yellow, blue and anthracite grey, all remi-
Bons and Smits, and Dutch opinion magazines fiercely criticized niscent of colors associated with the De Stijl movement. At Expo
the exhibit as unworthy of the Netherlands, the Dutch pavilion 58, white Mondial chairs were displayed in the Modern Living
and Dutch textiles. Major changes were ordered. A comparison department of the Dutch pavilion and used for public seating in
of photographs taken from the same angle at the start of Expo the Benelux pavilion.
58 and sometime later during the fair reveals that most of the The Dutch pavilion’s board of directors invited Dutch compa-
original display material was replaced by traditional mannequins, nies to present their products within a separate pavilion, with the
while part of the plastered wire mesh was torn down. In addition, stipulation that their presentation be both artistic and spectacu-
the podia flooring was replaced with wood parquet. lar. Philips, a Dutch multinational producer of domestic electrical
Rietveld created four pieces of furniture for the Dutch pavilion, appliances, was the only firm to respond and was allocated a
three of which are among his few designs that were industri- space next to the Dutch pavilion. Philips asked Rietveld to design
ally produced. Together with his son Wim Rietveld, he designed the exterior of the pavilion and Swiss architect Le Corbusier to
a stackable and linkable chair with a folded sheet-steel frame design the interior.
and a seat and back molded from a single aluminum sheet. A Accompanied by Philips’ general art director, Louis Kalff,
steel tube supported the back, seat and legs. The “V” formed Rietveld visited Le Corbusier in his Paris studio on the rue de
by the slender legs in profile resembled the fragile arms of a Sèvres on June 8th, 1956, to work out plans. However, Le
compass. At that time, Wim Rietveld worked as an industrial Corbusier, who wanted to take full control of the project, made it
designer for the well known metalworking factory Gispen, which clear immediately that he had no intention of cooperating with
had introduced tubular steel furniture in the Netherlands in the Rietveld, informing him that he would make “an interior that
late 1920s. Gispen produced two prototypes of the chair, one did not have an exterior.” Rietveld, who had brought his design
with Bakelite armrests and one without. Against the wishes of the sketches, chose not to show them in response to Le Corbusier’s
Rietvelds, Gispen decided to use more scratch-resistant polyester attitude. Rietveld’s design for the Philips pavilion was never
www.modernismmagazine.com 57