From the early to mid-1900s, the Dutch architect/designer Gerritt Rietveld made a series of furniture pieces that are made of straight staves of wood that join together at right angles to each other using dowel joinery in a joint design that now bears his name.
The most famous of these is the Red and Blue Chair (see right) which is often featured as an example of the De Stijl art movement that you may be more familiar with by way of Piet Mondrian's art, which the chair probably reminded you of, if you hadn't seen it before.
While Rietveld certainly was a part of that movement, he actually made versions of this chair that had no paint on them at all, made of hardwoods like purpleheart before the painted version. And, he made a whole series of furniture using this construction technique that doesn't have that color scheme.
I find myself particularly drawn to those versions. Which, when I found myself wanting deck furniture for the deck at the back of my house, made me want to give building in this style a shot.
So, we bought the book that a museum in the Netherlands published of measured drawings and started trying to figure it out. There are several people who've built versions of this chair, and there are even a few sets of plans out there in addition to what's in the book.
But we noticed a few things. First, was that many of the modern versions used screws, while the originals were all built (as far as we could tell) with dowels and glue. Some examples of even Rietveld's chairs do have metal fasteners, but we sort of took it on as a challenge to build ours without.
Second is that the original dimensions are very reflective of body sizes in 1916 Europe as well as for folks in younger bodies than my middle-aged, 6'4", fat one. The lowest point of the seat on his original is only 8 inches off the ground. I, uh, don't easily get up from that close to the ground anymore.
Third is that there was an opportunity to provide more of an anchor for where the back and seat come together. We added another cross piece that's not in the original designs, but is essentially hidden from many/most angles.
So, we drafted up a design for one that has a wider seating area and sits much higher in keeping with more modern ergonomics and that additional structure. But, we didn't want to build a complete one only to see that these newer dimensions looked horrible. So, we took it in steps. We started with a 3d model, then a scale model and kept liking the results.
Which meant it was time to actually try out this construction technique and figure it out. The book very much is a product of what it is: the publication of a museum having measured the specimen in their collection. What it is not is anything written by people who actually MAKE stuff. Think of it like the difference between an architect and a carpenter when it comes to building a house. Rietveld (and some other architects) actually do both. But, that book is really only the former.
Anyway, because the chair itself clearly posed some assembly challenges, we decided to tackle a side table first to learn the practical realities of the Rietveld joint in particular. The end table was as simple as we could make it while offering 8 opportunities to practice that joint.
We went with 1.5"x1.5" (sold as 2x2s in the US) staves, in keeping with American dimensional lumber available for sale in big box stores. Our goal wasn't a replica. It was to make something that picked up the intent and the work that makerij/workshop was doing 100 yrs ago. That includes using materials available near us rather than strictly trying to mill to the metric standards of a century ago.
That said, pine 2x2s of those dimensions are notoriously not straight unless you buy select pine. And, this was intended for outside, so I wanted cedar. So, we did, in fact, mill our 2x2s out of 2x6 cedar, which gave us nice, sharp, square edges and beautifully straight stock to work with.
It was a good thing we did, because figuring out how to drill the holes for the dowels so that you minimize the visibility (when done correctly, 2 of the 3 can be completely hidden and the bottom one is only visible from below). The order of assembly was also tricky. At some point, I'd love to provide instructions for how to build these things, but until I can figure out how to explain it in a way that won't cause a ton of support questions, I'm holding off.
Suffice it to say, we learned a bunch of great stuff in making the side table. And took that to build an actual chair. We still made plenty of mistakes, but were thrilled how this first full version turned out.
It's remarkably strong for how lightweight it is. It uses less material than lots of other deck chair designs. It's comfortable and much easier to get out of than one 8" off the ground.
But, we noticed one particularly glaring design change we needed to make on any going forward. Look at the arm rests and imagine yourself using them to push yourself out of the chair. Those arm rests are only attached to the uprights with dowels/glue, but that leverage really stresses that joint.
So, we added another structural piece under each arm rest for the next round. It definitely fixed that problem and made using the arm rests to get up (which nearly everyone who tests it did).
Between the 3 pieces, we did 3 different finishing tests. The side table got no finish (mostly out of treating it as a rough prototype and wanting to move on), the first got spar urethane and the second got a water-based outdoor finish.
Going forward, I'll absolutely use the spar urethane again and wouldn't ever do the others again. Obviously, unfinished cedar ages to that weathered gray look lots of people like. I personally don't. I love the warm glow of that first chair and the contrast with the green grass. That's definitely faded in the time since that photo was taken, and dirt from being outside has also hit them hard, but they're still sturdy.
I'd love to build a new, complete matching set to replace the prototypes, using everything we learned. I'd also like to make more pieces in this style if I can either find someone who has a place for them or can find one myself. There's a range of other pieces that Rietveld and those in his circle built using this aesthetic, the most amazing of which is this buffet.
I've designed a few pieces in this style, like a desk, that the pandemic sort of sidelined when I needed a desk to work at home faster than I could build my dream piece. I'd still love to build this, but it's a fairly big project to do this in hardwood.
We did build an indoor lettuce garden and a lamp that confirmed I really do like this whole building system. I like the way it looks. I like how strong and light it is. I like how elegant it is. But, it's deceptive in its simplicity. There's a lot to get right for this "simple" result.
Overall, one of the biggest lessons we learned is that it's super clear that the folks actually building this stuff mostly used the staves themselves as measuring devices, for making jigs, for deciding placement of the dowel holes, etc. We'd look at the measurements, translate to Imperial units, adjust for our design, etc. only to realize that the actual "right" measurement is just 2x or 3x the thickness of a stave.
The other is that, while cutting staves to length is easy, keeping track of which sides get dowel holes in which place and not mixing that up before or during assembly is a distinct challenge. We started a notation system, which helped, but it's still cumbersome.
Enjoy the rest of the photos of the whole project.
