Rietveld als 'Lebensgestalter'

• Main Author: Roby Boes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: KNOB 2018-12-01
• Series: Bulletin KNOB
• Online Access: https://bulletin.knob.nl/index.php/knob/article/view/136
• ISSN: 0166-0470; 2589-3343

Between 1929 and 1932, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld designed four dwellings for the Werkbundsiedlung architecture exhibition in Vienna. Mounted by the Austrian Werkbund in emulation of the German Die Wohnung exhibition of 1927, its initiator and organizer was the Austrian architect Josef Frank. The Werkbundsiedlung was located in a leafy suburb of Vienna and consisted of 70 fully furnished dwellings designed by 28 Austrian and 4 international architects, among the latter Rietveld. The Viennese model estate served as a manifesto for a new way of living and dwelling geared to an efficient use of space, a range of floor plan solutions and a modern interior design. After the exhibition closed the dwellings were offered for sale. Little has been published about these four Werkbund dwellings and the interior that Rietveld designed for one of them, even though it was his first prestigious international commission for single-family dwellings. He received the commission from a distinguished colleague, Josef Frank. Rietveld himself considered the result finer than the  Utrecht houses on Erasmuslaan and Schumannstraat that he had designed with Truus Schröder in the same period. In the Viennese plans Rietveld expressed his most important housing ideas in which light, air, flexibility, fitness for purpose and clarity of space were the main preconditions for a modern, active and conscious style of living. Rietveld would probably have liked to experiment with new building methods and materials, but  the construction requirements did not permit this. This explains why he did not use his concept of the  prefabricated core dwelling. Although Rietveld’s preferred layout with sliding doors was never implemented, this solution exemplifies his persistence in looking for ways to achieve his idea of a flexible dwelling within the specified requirements. He took full advantage of the limited freedom with respect to the size of the windows and balconies: no other Werkbund dwellings had so many continuous windows and wide balconies and thus so much (sun)light, air, warmth and space as those designed by Rietveld. Although his belief that modern human beings should ideally live in a small dwelling found no expression in the finished dwellings, it was present in the plans. His proposal to also design a smaller, 28 m² dwelling was rejected by Frank because of lack of time. For Rietveld the commission for the Viennese model dwellings was an ideal medium for experimenting on a scale of 1:1 and presenting solutions for an issue that exercised not just Rietveld but also many of his CIAM and Nieuwe Bouwen colleagues: what is the best way of living in the modern age? Although the dwellings were not very structurally innovative, and Rietveld was limited in his spatial choices, the modern living ideas expressed in his Viennese plans represented a notable contribution to the international architecture exhibitions of the 1920s and ’30s.