Collection by designer Wim Rietveld - Buro International

Wim Rietveld (1924-1985) was a Dutch designer of industrial equipment and furniture. He was the son of the architect and designer Gerrit Rietveld.

Wim Rietveld received a technical education and began his career as a designer of large equipment. In 1950, he enrolled as one of the first students on the newly established industrial design programme at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Thanks to the high quality of his graduation project, Rietveld was invited by W.H. Gispen to come and work for his furniture company Gispen. At the time, the Netherlands was in the midst of post-war reconstruction and materials were scarce. Rietveld was talented at combining functionality and aesthetics in his furniture and was able to devise simple production techniques.

At Gispen, where he worked from 1953 to 1957, Rietveld was involved in several well-known pieces of furniture, including the President office chair and various light fittings. His best-known design is probably the Mondial chair, which he developed together with his father Gerrit Rietveld. This stackable and linkable K-shaped chair was designed especially for Expo 58 in Brussels.

After his time at Gispen, Rietveld went to work at De Cirkel, a subsidiary of Ahrend, where he created his Pyramid chair and worked on the Reply drawing table together with Friso Kramer. He then worked as a freelancer on various commissions, including designs for the Amsterdam metro and bus seats.

Rietveld shared his knowledge as a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and later at the Delft University of Technology, where he held a professorship in 1973. His contributions to design and education have had a lasting influence on the Dutch design community.