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Why Are Architects So

Obsessed With Piet
Mondrian?

Written by Evan Pavka

April 01, 2018 Share

In the 1920s, Dutch-born artist Piet

Mondrian began painting his iconic black
grids populated with shi!ing planes of
primary colors. By moving beyond
references to the world around him, his
simplified language of lines and rectangles
known as Neo Plasticism explored the
dynamics of movement through color and
form alone. Though his red, yellow and
blue color-blocked canvases were
important elements of the De Stijl
movement in the early 1900s, almost a
century later Mondrian’s abstractions still
inspire architects across the globe.

But, what is it about these spatial

explorations that have captivated artists
and designers for so long?

Arguably the first instance of the

architectural adoption of Mondrian’s
explorations came in the form of a modest
two-story home—architect Gerrit Rietveld’s
first building—for the recently widowed
Truus Schröder and her three children in
Utrecht, Netherlands. Constructed
between 1923 and 1924 the Schröder
House saw the painter’s vivid planes and
grids transformed into metal strips,
expanses of wood, and lengths of tubular
steel painted red, blue and yellow that
frame the shi!ing planes of the roof,
windows, and walls. The home’s inner
walls were freed of their structural
responsibility allowing the internal space
to function as a flexible composition of
floating planes.

In 1926, painter and architect Theo van

Doesburg—a contemporary of both
Mondrian and Rietveld—was
commissioned to design the Café
L’Aubette. He conceived the interior
renovations as an inhabitable De Stijl
Painting—grids tilted at 45 degrees
envelop the walls and ceiling of the “Ciné-
Dancing” hall with vibrant hues of red,
yellow, blue, and green occupying the
irregular spaces between. Only two years
later, Mies van der Rohe would seemingly
transform Mondrian’s 1917 Composition in
Colour A into the broad expanses of glass,
marble, travertine, and steel defining the
Barcelona Pavilion.

Architectural interest in Mondrian’s work

would wane in the years leading up to the
second World War until post-war
consumerism drove the development of
George Nelson’s primary color-blocked
StorageWall of 1945—bringing the artist’s
work to the scale of home storage—while
the vibrant aluminium panels in Charlotte
Perriand, Jean Prouvé and Sonia
Delaunay’s Bookcase linked Neo Plasticism
with domestic display.

With the inauguration of Arts &

Architecture’s Case Study House Program,
design duo Charles and Ray Eames
modified the artist’s black grids into
prefabricated steel frames for the bold
cladding wrapping the two volumes of
their 1949 Case Study House #8. In
designing a prototypical, prefabricated
structure in response to the housing boom,
Mondrian’s abstracted planes and grids
naturally complimented industrial
production and war-born techniques to
bring domestic architecture to the masses.
Similar bold primary colors accented the
balconies of Le Corbusier’s brutalist utopia
Unite d’Habitiation in 1952 and would
eventually appear on the Pavilion Le
Corbusier as color-blocked enamel
paneling. Even fashion designer Yves Saint
Laurent adapted Mondrian's graphic grid
into a sack dress in 1965.

Mondrian’s lasting influence on

architecture is still present today—from
the Mondrian Hotel in LA and the Mondrian
Residences in Muntinlupa, Philippines to
the cladding of Richard Meier’s 1955 City
Hall of the Hague Netherlands, which was
repainted in early 2017 to celebrate De
Stijl's centennial.

Whether employed alongside new

manufacturing techniques or structural
capacities, the language of Mondrian’s
abstraction has fascinated architects in
their exploration of new spatial types. The
artist’s vision for the plasticity of the built
world allowed him to interrogate the
reductive idea of architecture as mass,
instead considering it as a dynamic
framework connected to the essential
shapes and rhythms of human life.

See more interpretations of Mondrian’s

work below.

INSTAGRAM ROMAINBOURVEN

romainbou… View Profile

Bobigny, France

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INSTAGRAM VIVEUTVITAS

viveutvitas View Profile

Los Angeles, California

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INSTAGRAM SALEMM.JPEG

finally saw this irl last night

76 Likes, 3 Comments - S▲LEM (@salemm___) on
Instagram: "finally saw this irl last night "
Read this on instagram.com >

INSTAGRAM VENCAZLO

Jmenuje se to "Mondrian nemá

prachy na nový plátno." Začal
jsem malovat, musel jsem
zešílet. #selžeš #mondrian
#artmaybe #redwhore
#czechbitch #zlo #dejinyumeni
8 Likes, 1 Comments - Venca Zlø (@vencazlo) on
Instagram: "Jmenuje se to "Mondrian nemá prachy na
nový plátno." Začal jsem malovat, musel jsem
zešílet...."
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INSTAGRAM CHICOSANTANA206

chicosantan… View Profile

530 followers

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INSTAGRAM MATTYMELTZ

#mondrian #brentwood #art #la

#canvasartapp @kedcampbell
34 Likes, 4 Comments - Matt Melton (@mattymeltz)
on Instagram: "#mondrian #brentwood #art #la
#canvasartapp @kedcampbell"
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INSTAGRAM FLAUTA38

#mondrian #brescia
52 Likes, 1 Comments - Flavia Buiarelli (@flauta38)
on Instagram: "#mondrian #brescia"
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INSTAGRAM PDHJ

pdhj View Profile

Amsterdam, Netherlands

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71 likes

Add a comment...

INSTAGRAM _MARILETA

Accostamento nuovo/vecchio.
Edificio in via Cesare De Lollis,
Roma (quartiere San Lorenzo).
Per la serie #Mondrian regna a
#sanlollo.
12 Likes, 1 Comments - M a r i l e n a L e t o
(@_marileta) on Instagram: "Accostamento
nuovo/vecchio. Edificio in via Cesare De Lollis, Roma
(quartiere San Lorenzo). Per la..."
Read this on instagram.com >

“ 사각사각 . . . #몬드리안 #
집 #빌링엔슈벤닝엔 #독일
#mondrian #house
#germany #haus
#villingenschwenningen
#deutschland

29 Likes, 1 Comments - 안해
원 (@so!sunny214) on
Instagram: "사각사각 . . . #몬
드리안 #집 #빌링엔슈벤닝엔 #
독일 #mondrian #house
#germany #haus
#villingenschwenningen
#deutschland" ”
INSTAGRAM AMRENNA

#mondrian #bari
#cityphotography #architecture
#colors
54 Likes, 2 Comments - @amrenna on Instagram:
"#mondrian #bari #cityphotography #architecture
#colors"
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“ Love this Mondrian

style bar. #mondrian
#pico!heday #l4like
#l4l #likeforlike #f4f
#f4follow #holidays
#capetown #streets

45 Likes, 1 Comments -
Joseph Dubruque
(@jodubruque) on
Instagram: "Love this
Mondrian style bar.
#mondrian #pico!heday
#l4like #l4l #likeforlike #f4f
#f4follow..." ”
INSTAGRAM PESTARZEC

Dudziarska II, from ongoing

documentary project on how
the post-transformation Poland
manifests itself in architecture
and urbanism. The temporary
social housing designed as a
short-term harbour for people
kicked out of council tenancy or
other projects was built in the
middle of nowhere, and in a
manner that intentionally was
considered as a motivating
factor to get out of there as fast
as possible. Instead, without
much surprise, the Dudziarska
blocks turned into a ghetto
dubbed the worst address in
Warsaw. In 2010, as a part of art
intervention, blocks were
painted with Malevich's Black
Square and Mondrian
compositions, and during
Warszawa w Budowie festival
there was a special bus trip to
the district to show it off. This
action was generally perceived
by the inhabitants as a safari-
like. In 2017, the city authorities
admitted the absolute failure of
the Dudziarska project, and
announced a gradual
abandonment of the estate and
its demolition or change of
character. / #documentary
#warsaw #dudziarska
#warszawa #grochow
#pragapoludnie #architecture
#social #projects
#newtopographics #mondrian
#staybrokeshootfilm
390 Likes, 5 Comments - paweł starzec (@pestarzec)
on Instagram: "Dudziarska II, from ongoing
documentary project on how the post-
transformation Poland manifests..."
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INSTAGRAM ALISAHBA_

alisahba_ View Profile

Hamburg, Germany

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165 likes

“ #detskykutik
#mondrian

35 Likes, 5 Comments -
@misovesely on Instagram:
"#detskykutik #mondrian" ”
INSTAGRAM SELTENABERMANCHMAL

#mondrian #durrës #durres

#albania #cityscape #citybreak
#architecture
33 Likes, 3 Comments - Isídōra
(@seltenabermanchmal) on Instagram: "#mondrian
#durrës #durres #albania #cityscape #citybreak
#architecture"
Read this on instagram.com >

INSTAGRAM CATH.IN_LORIENT

#citylife #citystreets #lorient

#igersbretagne #morbihan
#mondrianbuilding #mondrian Save

#architecture
#architecturelovers
#architecturephotography