Rietveld was largely a failure as a furniture designer. Rietvelds aspiring modernity was never realised in terms of furniture, the reason why his designs are revered is because of their look, not their function. By adhering to the principles of De Stijl, in english ‘the style,’ he left questions about function, structure and ergonomics to one side in favour of appearance.

When his patron Truus Schröder-Schräder remarked that the legs of his red blue chair were always catching her ankles, he remarked that, “they weren’t designed to catch the ankles of people like you.” De Stilj were on a reformist mission, ankles didn’t matter.

I can see the appeal for Rietveld to design the Zig Zag chair. Marcel Breuer had designed the Cesca chair a few years earlier using the strength of bicycle tubing to create a metal framed cantilvered chair. Breuer thus achieved two things, aesthetically and literally the user was supported by industrial production.

Reitvelds attempt to make a cantilevered chair in wood is a noble effort. Today modern production methods and glues are able to produce a chair with the same shape much more easily.

Jimmy Possum, legend has it, was a chair bodger who lived in a hollowed out tree near Deloraine in Tasmania. He had the simplest of tools and a fair supply of the local blackwood (Acacia Melonoxylon). His chairs were a simple windsor style design that could be produced without nails or screws. It is estimated that he produced several hundred chairs, many of which are in museums across the country.

A significant difference between the two chairs is the way they approach the weight of the user. Rietveld’s chair uses glue, screws, bolts and wedges to try to mitigate the stress placed on the chair by the user, so that the chair can resist the weight of the body and not collapse.

Jimmy Possum’s chair uses the weight of the user to strengthen the chair. The four angled and tapered legs go up through to the armrests, the weight of the user stiffens the chair as it is used. The heavier the user the more the chair stiffens. Jimmy Possum, a few decades before Rietveld, with a minimum of resources, produced a chair which married structure and ergonomics.

All photos taken by me at the Art Gallery of South Australia.