Rietveld's Axonometric Illustrations and the Problems of History (original) (raw)

2012

Abstract

When, in 1992 Yukio Futagawa published the Japanese journal series Global Architecture on the Rietveld Schröder House (GA 68) it encapsulated the representation of an apparently unproblematic historical occurrence. Included, were drawings and photographs, contextualised through commentary by the curator of the Rietveld archive in Utrecht, Ida van Zijl. Gerrit Rietveld had been the exempla of "Dutch" and De Stijl characteristics of the modern since the completion of the Schröder House in 1924. By the mid-century, Rietveld's position in architectural history had been reinforced through the exhibition and publication of drawings and models in centres of artistic dominance like Venice, New York and his birthplace, the Netherlands. As with the Futagawa publication, these exhibitions and their catalogues were presented without referencing any issues that might be raised associated with their content. Yet, recent assertions by staff at the Rietveld Archive, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, bring to light questions of attribution and provenance and a growing debate surrounding the use of specific illustrations. At issue is the provenance of the axonometric illustrations most commonly placed beside photographs of the Schröder House as evidence of a moment of synthesis in its design. While the complicated history of their provenance might seem of little concern to explaining Rietveld's architecture, recognition of the provenance of any art work brings with it historical questions including its contemporaneous setting with implications for possible influences, concepts of representation, and techniques of production. Changes in dates and locations of conception and completion significantly modify the relationship between the artefact, its content and the intellectual processes that influence its creation. Curators at the Rietveld archive have verbally asserted the date of the axonometric illustrations to be as late as 1951 and therefore conceptually questionable in its inclusion in new exhibitions of De Stijl during the mid-century. If this were true, Rietveld may have been in the process of reconstructing his own historical dominance in the De Stijl movement using the axonometric technique as representation of the concepts of the house.

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