Gerrit Rietveld
"Zig-Zag" Chair

"Zig-Zag" Chair

© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / c/o Pictoright Amsterdam

"Zig-Zag" Chair
"Zig-Zag" Chair
DesignerDutch, 1888–1964
CultureDutch
Titles
  • "Zig-Zag" Chair
DateDesigned 1932, made c. 1940
MediumPine
DimensionsOverall: 30 3/4 × 14 3/4 × 15 3/4 in. (78.1 × 37.5 × 40 cm)
Credit LineThe American Institute of Architects, Houston Design Collection, museum purchase funded by friends of Anderson Todd, FAIA, and S. I. Morris, FAIA, in their honor, and by the Decorative Arts Endowment
Object number2007.1791
Current Location
The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Gallery 206
On view

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Object Type
Description

The functionalist form of Gerrit Rietveld’s "Zig Zag" Chair  is a response to the cantilevered chairs designed by German architects such as Mart Stam, Heinz and Bodo Rasch, and Marcel Breuer in the 1920s. Rietveld intended the chair to be mass-produced from simple materials. It consists of four rectangles whose arrangement forms a cohesive unit that gives the appearance of seamless construction in profile. At first, however, Rietveld was unable to achieve a continuous cantilevered structure that would hold the weight of a person solely in wood. Therefore, he inserted a series of screws, dovetail joints, and reinforcing wedges to structurally support the design. The "Zig Zag" Chair  was ultimately produced by the Dutch firm Metz & Co. in a few variations until the 1950s. Because of its iconic status, in 1971, the chair was again put into production by the Italian firm Cassina. This example in pine dates from the earliest years.


 


ProvenanceJ.A. van den Berg, Utrecht, Netherlands, c. 1940; [Galerie Ulrich Fiedler, Cologne, Germany]; [Sotheby's, New York, December 14, 2007, lot 439]; purchased by MFAH, 2007.
Exhibition History"Recent Accessions in Design," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, August 16, 2009–February 21, 2010.

"Form Follows Function: Celebrating 10 Years of the American Institute of Architects, Houston Design Collection at the MFAH," The Museum of Fine Arts, Alice Pratt Brown Garden Gallery, August 8, 2010–January 30, 2011.

"Contemporary Dutch Design: Selections from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 19–November 25, 2018.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Initialed ? in ink on underside of back seat rail. (See photo in TMS)
View this object in The AIA Houston Collection

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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