Rietveld Photo Show Spotlights Overlooked Ohio House
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- "Gerrit Rietveld: Wealth of Sobriety" photo exhibition runs at the Center for Architecture through Sept. 2, co-curated by Columbia architectural historian Barry Bergdoll and Dutch photographer Arjan Bronkhorst
- Bronkhorst spent two years shooting 400 photographs of 15 Rietveld residences for an accompanying book, drawn from an estimated 100 houses the architect designed between 1924 and 1964
- Fourteen of the fifteen homes documented are in the Netherlands; the lone U.S. residence in Ohio is described as "the great discovery of the show"
- Rietveld (1888-1964) is best known for his jaunty 1918 "Red Blue Chair" and the de Stijl movement, but the show reframes his houses as "a new way of living" beyond furniture and abstract design
- The installation takes a "somewhat radical approach" by mixing exterior and interior photos across buildings rather than grouping them by house, to convey "the richness of life out of a deliberate reduction of things"
Why it matters: The exhibition rebalances Rietveld's legacy, pushing past his 1918 Red Blue Chair to reveal a four-decade residential practice — 14 Dutch homes plus a previously obscure house in Ohio. For design historians and Dutch Modernism collectors, the show and Bronkhorst's 400-photo catalogue become the primary visual record of houses that were rarely published and never documented at this depth.
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