De Stijl

De Stijl

      After the First World War, there was a turning away from old forms and philosophies amongst architects, designers, artists and writers. Many abstract ideas came into play. One of the most important trends of the 20th century was the increasing parallels and merging of art and design which has been separated since the end of the Renaissance.
De Stijl was formed in the early 1920’s by a group of architects and artists who were influenced by some of the ideas of DaDa.

     The founder of the publication and leader of the group was Theo van Doesburg, an architect together with Gerrit Rietveld and Piet Mondrian. 
The philosophy was based on functionalism. All surface decoration except colour had to be eliminated; only pure primary colours and black and white were allowed.

         They only managed to build very few of their designs so the most important thing about this group was definitely their ideas. Gerrit Rietveld’s house is the most complete realisation of De Stijl. The house, the furnishings and the decoration was all planned by Rietveld. 

       “The initial source of their ideas came from DaDa notions about dispensing with the pretentious elitist design aesthetics of the pre-war era. Some of the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, which had been published in Europe in 1910, influenced their notions about form. Japanese sources were also of significance, though these ideas may have been derived through the work of Wright.”




De Stijl. 2013. De Stijl. [ONLINE] Available at:http://char.txa.cornell.edu/art/decart/destijl/decstijl.htm. [Accessed 18 May 2013].