Jack White

 Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes, played guitar recently in The Netherlands sitting on a Rietveld Red / Blue chair! 

Read about it here: Jack White

Another Rietveld!

A reader submitted this to me. It looks like it came out well! 

" I thought I’d send you a picture of the crate chair I just made in my home shop.  I’d wanted to make it since I was in high school wood shop and finally had a chance while I was on spring break this past week. I’m not sure what color I am going to paint it so it is in primer grey at the moment. 

I changed the construction a bit by cutting a double row of biscuits to glue the seat and back to the legs. 

I am going to take a swing at the zig zag next and was so please to find your blog and have all of the answers to my joinery questions all in one place. Thank you for taking the time to document the process!! "

That's a pretty expensive Steltman!

 

 Here's a couple of quick posts on the Zig Zag Chair from Architectural Digest.

 Here's a couple of pictures I ran across on Instagram of Gwyneth Paltrow posing on a Steltman chair. 

Olaf's Red and Blue chair

One of my blog readers from Quebec, Olaf, e-mailed me with some photos of his latest project the iconic Red and Blue chair, which he has been wanting to build since he was 5 years old! Here is part of what he wrote:

"I received the “Rietveld Meubels om zelf te maken” book today. The book is great, and I’m already planning a whole slew of things to make"

Olaf says he's not painting the Red and Blue in the original colors, but in a scheme of black, white, and grey. He's also planning on building the Rietveld Crate Chair, Zig Zag, Military Chair, and the Berlin Chair & Side Table in the future.

I've added a few pictures of chair being built. I look forward to seeing the final results!

                                         
                              Back and seat, 12 mm Russian birch plywood

                                                               
                                               Frame being clamped

                            Seat and back on chair frame (but not attached)

First layer of black applied

                                                                 
                                                Second layer of grey

A softer, gentler, Red Blue Chair...

Cassina is offering a new interpretation of the classic Red Blue chair. The following is from their site:

While researching the origins of the Red and Blue model in collaboration with the Rietveld heirs, it emerged that the key idea of the first prototypes was based on the concept of spatial organisation expressed through the monochrome tones of its elements. The first version was in fact produced in 1918 in completely unpainted wood. 

In the following years Rietveld proposed various examples, either monochrome or painted in different colours, depending on the requirements of his customers and the interiors for which the chairs were intended. As such, it comes as no surprise to find this 1920s version, presented as part of Cassina’s MutAzioni selection, created for the school teacher Wicher Zeilmaker with a black frame with white ends and a dark green painted seat and backrest. 

It was Rietveld’s ever-increasing involvement in the De Stijl movement that led him to also use primary colours on this model in 1923, and as such the chair became a veritable manifesto for the emerging neoplastic movement. Initially dubbed Slat chair, Rietveld only gave it the name Red and Blue in the 1950s following its chromatic evolution.

The various owners of the different examples used the chair as an abstract-realist sculpture in their interiors and, in some cases, as a simple tool for sitting on, adding cushions to make it more comfortable, just like Cassina offers for the Black Red and Blue today.

$4,375 USD