‘Eetkamerstoel’ Rietveld Chair

We had a student made reproduction of Rietveld’s Red Blue chair in our College Library so his was probably the first designer chair we actively engaged with (i.e. sat on). Andrew has been making miniatures of his furniture for years in addition to collecting scale models of other classic furniture designs. It was only a matter of time before we had a go ourselves. Andrew’s joinery precision led the way and I carried the tools. Our first foray is the 1919 Dining chair/ Eetkamerstoel. Part of an interior for the De Ligt family in Katwijk aan Zee for which Rietveld designed 2 dining room chairs one with and one without arm rests, the furniture was complimented by a interior colour scheme by Theo van Doesburg. Using ‘simple’ dowel connections the chair is constructed out of 25mm square sections of oak and we are going to finish the seat and back in 12mm Birch ply. The original was made in either beech or oak painted white, with darker ends in either grey or black but having experimented with oil and varnish finishes we’ve left the wood bare and are going to paint the ends yellow. Despite the lightness of the sections you’d be surprised how solid this chair is.