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8 December 2014

Aluminium armstoel

by Gerrit Rietveld

Year: 1942

 

Only a few examples exist of the Aluminium armchair. Rietveld himself made two prototypes. Gerard van de Groenekan, his carpenter, is believed to have made one, as has Rietveld’s son Wim. One chair is part of the Stedelijk Museum’s collection in Amsterdam. A second piece used to be owned by the Faculty Architecture of the Technical University in Delft. This chair sadly perished in the fire in the TU in may 2008. It is not known where the other two examples are.

The chair is bent from one aluminium sheet, when Rietveld really had wanted to use fibreboard. According to architect and historian Gerrit Oorthuys, the first two prototypes were made from the wing of a British airplane that had crashed, smuggled to Rietveld. It gives the Aluminium chair, designed during the second world war, an air of heroism.