International Competitions in Architecture
A(nother) RED & BLUE CHAIR
Perhaps Mies was right: a chair is more difficult to design than a skyscraper.
In a way it is probably true.
A chair, almost like a pair of shoes, used for a while, says something about its conceiver, or its user, or both.
Towards a Psychology of a Chair?
Why not?...
After all, perhaps Vincent Van Gogh might have agreed with us, since for him, indeed, the chair he painted was almost a self-portrait, just like the shoes he painted.
And since we talked about a great Dutch painter, let’s talk about other great Dutch artists, designers, architects.
In 2017 there will be 100 years since the birth of the De Stijl movement, a modern art movement that continues to impress us with its freshness, vivacity, optimism.
And equally in 2017 the famous Red & Blue Chair by Gerrit Rietveld was conceived, although the colors were added later, at the suggestion of the architect Bert van der Leck.
And since we like to celebrate, creatively, as much as possible, and to connect with important moments in our cultural history, we invite you now to design A(nother) BLUE AND RED CHAIR, one that would be, somehow, inspired by the great Dutch art movement that also inspired Rietveld.
The idea is to celebrate the creation of this chair with another chair, respecting just one requirement: that it would also be a RED & BLUE chair, even if the design would hopefully be very different.
For Piet Mondrian colors were not just “colors,” they had a symbolic, even a mystical meaning, since, as we know, Mondrian was influenced by Theosophy, that is, by mysticism.
But the greatness of the Dutch spirit is that even theosophy became, in the hands of the Dutch artists, full of unmediated joy and unspeculative pragmatism that still generates a fresh and convincing optimism.
So maybe the new “Red & Blue Chair” would also be optimistic and expressing what the De Stijl movement tried to express: a desire to renew not just art, but also, and more importantly, Life itself.
Design a new RED & BLUE chair!
Make it as original as possible! But please use these two colors, together, perhaps, with black.
These are the only requirements.
Let’s dedicate this chair to Gerrit Rietveld and to the great De Stijl art movement, both born in 1917. We will try to persuade the city of Leiden, where this art movement was born, to exhibit the best works received, as part of the centennial celebrations.
Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format by July 1st, 2017. Please write to us at info@icarch.us in order to receive a registration number with which to anonymously identify your work. There will be a flat registration fee of 20 euro that will help us cover the costs of the printing. We will exhibit all the works received both on our website and in an exhibition at The University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu" in Bucharest.
Thank you,
ICARCH Gallery
www.icarch.us
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