Press Room Chair in Coral Pink, Designed in 1958 by Gerrit Rietveld

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Press Room Chair in Coral Pink, Designed in 1958 by Gerrit Rietveld

About the Item

The Press Room Chair was designed in 1958 by Gerrit Rietveld for the UNESCO building in Paris. Rietveld designed the armchair as a comfortable lounge chair for journalists at the reading table in the pressroom. However, due to the tight budget and limited time, the design was not carried out and Rietveld was forced to replace it with furniture he had made for the Brussels World Exhibition earlier that year. Fortunately, the original designs, drawings and models have been preserved. 56 years after its conception Rietveld Originals presented the fist edition of the Press Room Chair. Rietveld’s signature is clearly recognizable in the clear lines of the Press Room Chair. Rietveld also used the angle in which the seat and backrest are placed, in combination with the high-looking armrests, in his famous Red-Blue chair. The chair can be upholstered in various fabrics and leathers. The special double-stitch finish accentuates the clean, clear division of the surface of the armchair. The armrests are available in oak, natural or stained black, or American walnut. The swivel base is available in matt black or stainless steel and has a return mechanism, so that the Press Room Chair always moves back to its original position. To protect the floor, the swivel base is equipped with saddle leather foot straps in mid-brown, dark brown or black. Although the armchair is the perfect place to relax, Rietveld felt that a chair was not necessarily meant to rest in. To emphasize this, there is a poem by the German poet Morgenstern on the underside of each Press Room Chair, in which this idea is perfectly expressed. This version of the Press Room Chair is upholstered in coral pink wool. The armrests are made of solid American walnut. The swivel base is black stained and has brown saddle leather foot straps.

Creator:
Gerrit Rietveld (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 30.71 in (78 cm)Width: 26.38 in (67 cm)Depth: 30.71 in (78 cm)Seat Height: 16.54 in (42 cm)
Style:
Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Fabric,Steel,Walnut,Lacquered,Powder-Coated,Woven
Place of Origin:
Netherlands
Period:
21st Century
Date of Manufacture:
2020
Production Type:
New & Custom(Current Production)
Estimated Production Time:
5-6 weeks
Condition:
Seller Location:
Eindhoven, NL
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU5396221000542

Shop All Gerrit Rietveld

Gerrit Rietveld

Best known for his Red and Blue chair, a modernist icon created using only two plywood plates and 15 connecting bars, Dutch designer Gerrit Thomas Rietveld trained as a cabinetmaker, and his bold vision for furniture was supported by his expertise in construction and craftsmanship.

Born in Utrecht, Rietveld learned goldsmithing in addition to the cabinetry apprenticeship he had in his carpenter father’s workshop. He studied draftsmanship with architect Piet Klaarhamer at the Utrecht Museum of Applied Arts and opened his own furniture workshop in 1917. In the 1930s, Rietveld began to experiment with then-unusual materials like plywood and aluminum, and he pursued intellectual concepts through his design, even considering a seat as a resting place for the body and the soul.

Designed in 1918, the minimalist Red and Blue chair is widely coveted by collectors and gained admirers in the likes of legendary American sculptor and designer Donald Judd over the years. (Examples of Rietveld’s designs can be found in Judd’s restored home-museum in New York City.) The Red and Blue chair is so stunning in its geometric simplicity that it is one of the most important symbols of the Dutch art and design movement of the early 20th century called De Stijl, of which Rietveld was an important part. De Stijl means “the Style” and was an effort to express utopian values through pure abstraction in design and the use of primary colors.

Another example of Rietveld’s celebrated seating furniture is the Zig-Zag chair, which was commissioned by the Dutch department store Metz & Co. and intended to be mass-produced. The resulting design — to which the rights to manufacture were bought by Cassina in 1971 — is the essence of the De Stijl movement and an example of Rietveld’s experiments with jointless chairs made from a single material, wood. The Zig-Zag chair’s armless, legless, elegant form is pure abstraction, yet it is also sturdy and comfortable.

Later in his career, Rietveld worked more often as an architect, designing buildings in prestigious settings like the Venice Biennale. He was a pioneer in more ways than one: The first building he designed, Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht in 1924, is a radically modern space and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

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