(Bonas essay) Black, P. (1885-1977) Pieter (Piet) Zwart belonged to the modern avant-garde in the 1920s and 1930s and worked as a photographer, (interior) architect, industrial designer and as a graphic designer. His work always straddled the various disciplines and was characterized by an unconventional approach. With the architects Jan Wils and especially with Berlage, Zwart developed primarily as a draughtsman, interior architect and designer. His graphic work for, among others, the Dutch Cable Factory Delft has an unprecedented fresh and modern look and received international attention. From the 1930s until after World War II, Zwart worked primarily for the Bruynzeel company on the development of a standardized kitchen. The functionalist kitchen excelled in efficiency and, thanks to its loose elements, could be placed in basically any home. Piet Zwart was born in Zaandijk and attended the Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid in Amsterdam from 1902 to 1907, where he took a variety of classes in the departments of drawing and painting, architecture and applied arts. From 1908, Zwart taught drawing and art history for several years at the Industrial and Household School in Leeuwarden. In 1913 he returned to the Randstad and settled in Voorburg. He studied at the TH in Delft for another year in 1913-1914. During World War I, Zwart worked on various applied arts projects, such as home interiors and designs for fabrics and wallpaper. He also made decorative designs for embroidered rugs, tea hats and children's clothing. The social upheavals of the 1920s and the new artistic ideas of the avant-garde also brought other ideas about the artist's task and meant a radical reorientation for Black. Artisanal, traditional design was a thing of the past for him from then on, and everything stood in the light of innovation and a sober, functional style. From 1919, Zwart taught at the Rotterdam Academy of Visual Arts and Technical Sciences. He was fired from there in 1933 after he had been quite explicit about the redesign of art education. His progressive ideas were closely aligned with the innovative methods and goals of the Bauhaus in Dessau, where he had been asked to give a number of guest lectures in 1929. But since the conventional Rotterdam establishment could not get along with Zwart's progressive plans, he was dismissed from the Academy over a futility. In the early 1920s, Zwart joined the architectural firm of the renowned Berlage as a draftsman, after working for Jan Wils for two years from 1919 through 1920. One of his first commissions at Berlage involved designing a breakfast service (1922-1923) in yellow pressed glass for Mrs. Kröller-Müller at the St. Hubertus hunting lodge. Black chose simple basic shapes of circle and hexagon. Not only was this simplified form functional for fabrication, but with it he made a principled statement about the possible hard form of an everyday utensil. An object without decoration yet rich in visual information. Until 1927, Zwart worked with Berlage on several projects, including the Haags Gemeentemuseum (now Kunstmuseum Den Haag) and Mercatorplein in Amsterdam. One of the most important projects Zwart collaborated on was the interior of the Christian Science Church in The Hague (1925-1926), where Zwart designed the pulpit, organ and pews. Zwart's idea was also the use of glass building blocks that provided the church with additional daylight. Zwart's first typographic works date from late 1921 and involved stationery for Vickers House and advertising for IOCO rubber flooring in The Hague. Between 1923 and 1933, Zwart designed hundreds of advertisements for the Nederlandse Kabelfabriek in Delft. Every month and sometimes more frequently a new advertisement appeared in the trade magazines, in which he experimented extensively and introduced new typographic design. The application of photography and the use of diagonal directions and white surfaces gave his advertisements a spatial, architectural look. Similar experiments at the Bauhaus and in Russia gave birth to the New Typography, characterized by sans serif letters and dynamic effects. Much of Zwart's advertising work was done at printing firm Trio in The Hague. In 1930, he produced an advertising book for the printer, in which he also expressed his views on typography. The emphasis was on professionalism, functionality and precision rather than beauty. Beginning in 1930, Zwart designed calendars and other advertising materials on a monthly basis for the Zaanse firm Bruynzeel. During the 1930s until after World War II, he was also involved in other facets of the business, such as designing purpose-built kitchens and parts of kitchen interiors (cabinets, furniture and doors) and taking care of the interior design of showrooms. He also designed packaging materials, such as a triangular canister for oil and wax or wooden crayon boxes. With ingenuity and in an original way, he knew how to find good solutions, even though with his background he was entering almost unknown territory. Zwart's work in designing an efficient kitchen was in keeping with the avant-garde developments within architecture in the 1920s and 1930s. The standardization that was to produce an affordable home that met the new understanding of hygiene (i.e., light and air) was also applied to the design and layout of the kitchen. Bruynzeel developed a standard kitchen with Zwart. This was made up of individual elements and could be built anywhere. The first version from 1938 had all kinds of technical gadgets that met the requirements of efficient space utilization. Typical are the broom hangers, lid racks, bread drawer and potato cabinet at good height, or the shutter-through cabinet to the living room. After World War II, Zwart, along with his colleague Paul Schuitema and Amsterdam economist Jan Bouwman, drafted a report on industrial design. The report was addressed to the Commissariat of Reconstruction and argued that the government had a regulatory role. It also described new ideas about the organization of art and design education. With the establishment of the GKf (the Association of Practitioners of Related Arts) and the Institute of Design, these ideas returned somewhat. At the end of his career in 1968, Zwart was still commissioned to create a postage stamp. In addition to international attention for his work, he received several awards, including the Quellinus Prize in 1959 for his typographic work, the David Roëll Prize in 1964 for his entire body of work and the honorable English Honorary Distinction of Royal Designer for Industry in 1966. Education: Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid Amsterdam/1902-1907; TU Delft/1913-1914 Side activities: VANK/member/1919-; Rotterdam Academy of Arts and Technical Sciences/teacher/1919-1933; Opbouw/member/1920- Honors: Quellinus Prize for typographic work/1959; David Roëll Prize/1964; Honorary Distinction of Royal Designer for Industry/1966