J.C. Rietveld (1919-1986) Jan Rietveld was born in Utrecht on April 27, 1919, the son of architect Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964) and died in Amsterdam on December 17, 1986. He grew up in an environment where the ideas of De Stijl and Nieuwe Bouwen were familiar territory. He was formed in by the unconventional environment of his famous father. There was an atmosphere of great freedom in the family; everyone had to find their own way, not necessarily through a focused schooling. When Jan Rietveld was not doing well at school, father Gerrit sent him to contractor Moolenbeek, who worked a lot for Rietveld, to learn carpentry. On a 1941 payroll from Moolenbeek, Jan Rietveld's name appears, employed by him for a carpentry wage of five guilders a week. During the war, Jan Rietveld worked at the architectural offices of Van Tijen & Maaskant and Brinkman & Van den Broek. At the time, he lived with Jaap Bakema in the Bergpolder flat. They knew each other from working at Van Tijen. To escape the Arbeitseinsatz, they tried to flee together in 1943 via Spain to England via a French escape route, but ended up in a forced labor camp in France. After a year, they escaped with French help. After the war, he worked with his father in Utrecht for a time but soon left for Amsterdam. There he attended the evening course at the Academy of Architecture and became a member of "De 8 ". He graduated in 1949 with B. Bijvoet.His first commission in 1947, still during his studies, was a renovation of a doctor's house in Ameide. By placing a steel spiral staircase in the middle of the house and cladding it with frosted glass walls, he attracted the attention of colleagues. Jan Rietveld built many detached houses often with a practice room. As an interior designer, he also has a large number of renovations to his credit. His best-known building is the Westereind apartment building in Amsterdam (Slotermeer) located along the A10 motorway. Besides housing, he has received few commissions from other sectors. Exceptions are the Westereind apartment building in Amsterdam and the Regional Employment Office in Hoorn. There are also a number of large projects that were not realized, such as the recreational park 'Futuron' in Emmen, urban renewal project Martinikerkhof Groningen and a shipping museum in Lelystad. For Jan Rietveld, good cooperation between client and architect was essential. Each work was for him a new challenge to get to the heart of the commission. Many conversations and exchanges of letters preceded the final design. The houses were tailor-made for the residents,were practical. The starting point was the location in the environment and a good floor plan. The floor plan determined the overall design. Rietveld believed that when floor plans and cross-sections were in order, the facades were automatically correct. A striking feature in Jan Rietveld's floor plans is the introduction of diagonal sightlines in the otherwise orthogonal designs. This oblique articulation gives a great spatial effect. In the often small houses he managed to create a lot of space in this way. The smallest house he built in Bergen for J.Rona (1962) was only 220 m3. Due to angled and sloping walls, it seems considerably larger. The living space widens outward, while the terrace is brought back in. This was for him a favored means of connecting inside and outside. Terraces and balconies had an important function: the intermediate area between inside and outside. In the weekend house in Teuven (1968), a corner was chamfered which then continued through a large glass facade into a terrace, which had a special spatial effect. His houses could be extremely open and at the same time extremely closed. Other means were also used such as level differences with a split level (House in Bentveld 1963) or an extra high ceiling. With clean brickwork in the interior, the interior space was seen as a continuation of the exterior. The exterior facade was often given extra accents through recessed joints creating a lively light and shadow effect. Aldo van Eyck gave an apt description of the eye-widening applications in Jan Rietveld's work: "People do not turn their gaze, head or body jerkily 90 degrees like soldiers, but differently. Surely the built should reasonably respond to this by making 'turns' that sufficiently guide the viewer's gaze so as not to cause disorientation. This happens in and around Jan Rietveld's houses, and it is partly for this reason that he increasingly emphatically designed both orthogonal and diagonal (double orthogonal). By turning walls, facades and thus automatically also openings therein, a quarter turn, the building direction converges with the course of attention - anticipates as it were. The boundary of the space then turns locally and successively less abruptly than is possible with a purely othogonal design, toward or away from the viewer." The suggestive spatial effect in the floor plans is also reflected in the placement of a fireplace: never centrally in the middle. The transitional area between public and private received attention at entrances, set back slightly or provided with an awning, as shelter from wind and weather. Terrace and garden were often connected by an external staircase with self-projecting steps: Van Gelder residence in Bergen (1960), Bots residence in Berkel en Rodenrijs (1957) and Klein residence in Tienhoven (1951). In house Kuiper in Bergen (1961) an interior staircase with self-projecting steps was applied as a connection between living room and mezzanine floor. The wishes of the clients could go far and in combination with the building regulations could lead to remarkable designs such as in the Kuiper house in Bergen (1961) where the corners of the house were rounded to reduce wind nuisance. These rounded corners almost called for the characteristic thatch covering for the roof that the curb regulations demanded. Rounded corner shapes also occurred in the Nandorff residence in Wassenaar (1972). Here it was the fireplace that defined these shapes. Placed in a corner of the living room, on the same corner but on the outside wall, a fireplace was also placed with a rounded corner as a logical solution. In the choice of materials, too, Rietveld was guided by the wishes of the residents and the requirements of the welfare authorities. Rietveld's way of designing had something surprising about it. His sketch designs were created at the drinks table of the local pub on small pieces of paper, beer mats or cigar boxes (scale 1:200) and then, at the same scale, made into models of cardboard, solid paper and glass, often no bigger than a fist. At the right moment, he managed to conjure them out of a pocket. As small as the models were, they often included the entire layout including the furniture. Rietveld was a true model artist and passed on this design method to many of his students. In 'De Kring' on Leidseplein in Amsterdam, a stone's throw from his home, he could be found almost daily. There contacts developed that brought him many a commission from the world of artists and publishers. As a teacher at various schools (Enschede, Amsterdam, Delft), Jan Rietveld occupied a special place. From 1951-1955 he taught interior design at the School of Arts and Crafts in Enschede. And then until 1984 he taught interior design and architectural design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. From 1970-1980 with a break from 1975-1977 he was extraordinary professor at TH Delft. In design education, he had an important influence on generations of architects and interior designers. To his students he said, "Start simple first." Starting simple and visualizing designs in maquettes were fixtures. In Amsterdam, he and Aldo van Eyck had a group of students at the evening school of the Rietveld Academy. There he was in his element for years. That was not the case in Delft at the TH in the era of public participation and democratization. There he felt increasingly threatened by rebellious students who accused him of only building villas for "Big Capital. He preferred to work in small groups and did not like speaking in front of large auditoriums. Nevertheless, his interest did extend to social housing but the ever-increasing regulations in this field were an obstacle to him making good housing. Moreover, he missed the contact between client and architect that was necessary for him to arrive at a good design. It was difficult for Jan Rietveld to emerge from his father's shadow and become someone himself. He has always been "the son of. He was initiated into the profession by his father, heefy worked with him same and for a long time he received the same kind of assignments as his father: large number of detached houses. His work can be seen as a continuation of his father's work and is not inferior to it when it comes to clever solutions for floor plan and interior, tailored to the wishes of the residents. His designs are soberly grafted onto dimensional grids.His descent from a family of furniture makers is evident in his interior designs with fixed furniture and built-in cabinets and his eye for detail. He designed custom kitchens, different for each client: fold-out tables and cabinets under the countertop with doors turning on their axis as in the Kuiper Bergen residence (1961). His cube-shaped houses refer to De Stijl, but Jan Rietveld was less strict in the doctrine, as evidenced by the frequently applied long, faintly sloping roofs. He also used traditional materials and forms, wooden window frames in addition to steel, exposed brick and saddle roofs in addition to flat roofs, even thatched roofs, often because this was required by the architectural committee. He was close in his views to Aldo van Eyck, with whom he was good friends. Their interest in the profession was the basis of their good relationship. Together they worked on several commissions and met at "The 8." In 1951, Jan Rietveld made a trip to the Sahara with a company that included Aldo and Hannie van Eyck. For him, it meant a confrontation with elements that were disappearing in the Western world: the natural connection between individual homes and the space around them, between individual and community. The simple village houses were in fact custom-built dwellings, just as Jan Rietveld's houses would later be. That same year, Aldo van Eyck and Jan Rietveld co-curated an exhibition on the New Building for the Milan Triennial, highlighting the connection between the individual and communal, between private and public, between closed and open. In 1952-1953, they worked on a project for 64 low-rise housing units for the elderly in Slotermeer and created enclosed squares that formed, as it were, an extension of the dwellings: openness and seclusion, inside and outside gradually merging into one another. The ideas of the Forum Group (1959-1963), with Aldo van Eyck as an important initiator, already presented themselves here. Despite working with Forum Group leaders such as Aldo van Eyck and Jaap Bakema, Jan Rietveld never manifested himself as an active spokesman for this group of architects. However, the ideas of the Forum Group can be found in his work: the relationship between inside and outside, between openness and transparency and seclusion and intimacy. Jan Rietveld interpreted the ideas of the New Building in his own way, less stringent and less dogmatic. Each work meant an impulse to experiment and get to the heart of the task. Data on Jan Rietveld can be found in the NAI's archives. In 1992, the NAI acquired the archive of Jan Rietveld. It consists of design sketches, models, survey drawings, documentation and photographs. Specification drawings are only present for the most recent projects. Education: Academy of Architecture/1949 (or 1951?). Secondary activities: Kunstacademie Enschede(formerly arts and crafts school)/teacher of interior design/1951-1955;Gerrit Rietveldacademie Amsterdam/teacher of interior design and architectural design(day and evening school)/1955-1984;Gerrit Rietveldacademie Amsterdam/adjunct director evening school/;TH Delft/extraordinary professor/1970-1975,1977-1980;Ideaal Wonen/editor/;De 8/member/1947-1959;Opbouw/member/;Goed Wonen/editor/1948-1956