Gerrit Rietveld Academie
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Gerrit Rietveld Academie is a Dutch Academy of art and design based in Amsterdam and named in memory of the famous Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. The Rietveld Academie is an independent school for higher vocational education which is attended by more than nine hundred fifty students from which about 40 % come from outside of the Netherlands from more than 50 nationalities. Many of the Academie's 200 tutors are independent artists or designers.
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History
The institution for fine arts and design located in Amsterdam is founded in 1924 after a fusion of three older art academies. At first the newly formed institute was called Kunstnijverheidsschool, short for Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs. From 1939 to 1960 the institute was mainly under influence of the functionalism and political critic views of De Stijl and Bauhaus. This was because of the role that socialistic architect Mart Stam had on the institute as being the director of the institute. In the 1960s Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld designed a new, more functional building for the institute together with his colleagues Joan van Dillen and Johan van Tricht. Gerrit Rietveld died quite some years before the realisation of the building and to honour its builder the academy was renamed in 1968 from Kunstnijverheidsschool to Gerrit Rietveld Academie. In this period the influence of autonome art and individual expression on the academy grew which shaped its face and in contemporary times still is the face of the academy. From of 1993 the institute falls under the law of higher education and scientific research.
Teaching Goal
The teaching goal of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie is to educate the individual personality of each student, to extend his/her potential into a versatile practice.
The Buildings
The Rietveld Academie consists of two buildings: The main building was designed by Gerrit Rietveld between 1950 and 1963 and was finished in 1966. It is the largest building he ever build and it is used by the design departments. In between the commission and completion of the building there was a long period of preparation during which Rietveld's designs went through some major developments. Gerrit Rietveld did not live long enough to see the completion of the building, he died while they were still working on it.
In 1967 the academy moved into the building. When the school became part of the Hoger Beroepsonderwijs (Higher Vocational Education) and got the status of Academy for the Visual Arts and Design in 1968, it was decided to honour Rietveld and change the name into Gerrit Rietveld Academie. The larger part of the building was renovated in 2003.
The new wing, designed by Benthem Crouwel Architects and built in 2003, is used by the fine arts departments.
List of Bachelor courses
Design departments
Architectural Design
Design Lab
Fashion Design
Graphic Design
Jewellery Design
Textile Design
Autonomous departments
Audio Visual
The degree course VAV aims at the development of ideas, the development of the student's artistic possibilities and the development of conceptual thinking.
Ceramics
Ceramics has been rediscovered as a fine arts medium in the past few years. The course that is covered by ceramics as an art form is wide and diverse. It ranges from the purely functional, such as crockery, to a statue, like a monument in a public area, and everything that lies in between.
Fine Arts
The Fine Arts course aims at the development of the student's artistic possibilities and therefore his thinking and acting as artist is put first and foremost. He/She studies individually in a group of at the most twenty students, supervised by a fixed team of teachers and one mentor.
Glass
The course trains students to become independent glass designers. Students are individually coached and stimulated to create their own form language within their choice of techniques and materials.
Image & Language
Photography
Theatrical Design / Art Direction
