II. The Coloured Edges of De Stijl: A Conservator’s Perspective on Artworks by Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg

Introduction

The conservation studio RNA – restauratie nijhoff asser in Amsterdam was given the opportunity to work on the Theo Van Doesburg Collection at the architecture and design archive Het Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) in Rotterdam as part of the institute’s conservation project “Architectuur Dichterbij” (Disclosing Architecture 2017–22).¹ The collection consists of around 450 drawings and architectural plans by members of the art movement De Stijl, including works by Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), Nelly van Moorsel (1899–1975), Cornelis van Eesteren (1897–1988), and Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964). De Stijl was an influential Dutch collective of artists and architects who published a journal with the same name from 1917 to 1932. Internationally, De Stijl is often described as neoplasticism, and the movement is best known for including painters Piet Mondriaan, Vilmos Huszár, and Bart van der Leck and architects Rietveld, Robert van ‘t Hoff, and J. J. P. Oud. Theo van Doesburg founded the journal and the movement, and remained a strong advocate for the views and art of the collective until his death.

The large-scale conservation project on the Van Doesburg Collection offered the RNA conservation team the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive analysis and gain a deeper understanding of the collection’s materiality, as well as the craft practices of the artists and architects who contributed to it. Paper conservators interpret the Van Doesburg Collection first and foremost through a material and technical perspective—a perspective that has gained greater prominence in art historical discourse over the past decades. As this article demonstrates, the conservator’s eye can offer valuable new insights into aspects of the history of artworks that might be overlooked by historians less familiar with materiality.

While working on the objects in the Van Doesburg Collection, nine floor plans began to stand out, both in terms of their material appearance and their treatment. At first sight, they appear to be typical architectural greyscale layouts for three separate buildings. However, in the way they were constructed, mounted, and decorated with coloured frames, the floor plans form a set separate from the other 441 designs. Besides their appearance, the floor plans caught the conservators’ attention because their coloured frames posed an ethical treatment dilemma. Some of the coloured frames consist of multiple layers of coloured pressure-sensitive tape, while others are made of brown gummed tape that was painted red (Figs. 2, 3).

Within the conservation team, the general attitude was that pressure-sensitive tape used for mending tears should be replaced with chemically and mechanically more stable alternatives to prevent further potential degradation of the objects. In the case of these floor plans, however, the coloured tapes consist of many different layers of materials and they were not primarily used for repairs. Moreover, the bold primary colours of the edges contribute significantly to the visual reception of the works.

Usually, for treatment dilemmas such as these, the conservators consult the curators. However, in this case neither the conservators nor the curators of the archive knew the function of these coloured tapes, whether they were contemporary, who added them, or their historical and artistic value. Before the conservators could proceed with the treatment of these floor plans, the nature and potential artistic significance of the different layers of coloured-frame tapes had to be determined.

Answers to these questions were found by delving into the history of these objects, researching why the floor plans were created and what happened to them after they were made. To resolve the treatment dilemma, nine material biographies of the artworks were written, including the creators’ motivations, the provenance of the floor plans, their exhibition history, and a material analysis. The present paper shows how a technical study of objects is essential for art historical research and the interpretation of objects, as well as for their preservation.

Materiality and concept, colour and construction: the initial creation of the nine floor plans

The nine mounted floor plans were made by Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg (Fig. 5) in 1923 and are designs for three buildings or projects: an artist’s house (Maison d’Artiste), a private house (Maison Particulière), and a private villa (Hôtel Particulier, also known as Maison Rosenberg). Originally, ten floor plans were made but the ground-floor plan of Maison d’Artiste was lost over time. The floor plans were originally made for the De Stijl exhibition at Galerie l’Effort Moderne in Paris, hosted by Leonce Rosenberg from October 15 to November 15, 1923, during a formative period for the art movement.² Rosenberg had requested that De Stijl design a cultural centre, but Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg took their own course and designed three buildings instead—Hôtel Particulier, Maison Particulière, and Maison d’Artiste—which represent the start of collaboration between the architect Van Eesteren and the painter Van Doesburg.

Perhaps remarkably, the designs were not made to be executed.³ Rather, the designs for the three projects were displayed at the 1923 exhibition as an experiment to integrate architecture and the art of painting, a central theme for Van Doesburg and De Stijl.⁴ Art historian Manfred Bock writes that Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg’s collaboration can be understood as an attempt to integrate painting and architecture by creating tension between colour and design, and between concept and material.⁵ An important part of this integration of painting and architecture was the use of colour. Van Doesburg addresses these tensions between colour and architecture in a letter to Van Eesteren when he writes that the exhibition itself was their first “manifesto.” They sought to maximise the tension between architecture, which Van Doesburg perceived as “purpose-art,” and the “free aesthetic expression of colour” to create “the impact of a bomb” on the established conventions.⁶ To convince the audience of the exhibition, they published a manifesto that expressed their visions for architecture and painting.⁷

For the three projects (Maison d’Artiste, Maison Particulière, and Hôtel Particulier), not only were nine floor plans made, but also axonometric projections, “contra-constructions,” and maquettes (Figs. 6–10 of Maison Particulière below).⁸ While the floor plans are two-dimensional plans, the axonometric projections (Fig. 7) show the space in three dimensions. The “contra-constructions,” a term coined by Van Doesburg, deconstruct the axonometric projections into spaces of colour without structure, as can be seen in Figure 9. The maquettes are scale models of the buildings that show both colour and three-dimensional space. Thus, the floor plans were designed in combination with other designs, all of which were on display at the exhibition.

To interpret how the designs relate to each other and to demonstrate the intended integration of architecture and painting, I suggest categorising the designs exhibited in 1923 into three stages: architectural design, colour analysis, and synthesis.⁹ The floor plans and axonometric projections are the first stage, where space is created two- and three-dimensionally in an architectural manner. In the second stage, colour is introduced and construction removed, creating the contra-constructions. The maquettes would then be the final stage, where synthesis is achieved through a coloured physical model of the finished building. The floor plans and the axonometric projections can be regarded as the closest to traditional architectural designs. The contra-constructions, however, are closer to neoplastic abstract painting*.*

In this context, the coloured frames of the floor plans (Fig. 6) forecast the colours that will be introduced to the greyscale architectural designs. The colours used for these objects were not chosen at random. For Van Doesburg, harmony in design was best achieved by combining the three “positive” primary colours red, blue, and yellow with the “negative” noncolours black, grey, and white.¹⁰ In the period 1920–23, when working with architect Cornelis Rienks de Boer (1881-1966), Van Doesburg was developing what he called a “scientific theory of colour.”¹¹ In his view, fields of positive primary colours should always be separated by “walls” of the “supporting-colours” white, grey, or black to create “a harmonious distribution.¹² To establish the transition from architecture to art, Van Doesburg created colour analyses on the axonometric projections to make spaces of colour void of construction.¹³ These are the contra-constructions, in which only the fields of colour remain, as if they are floating in the air.

The floor plans were exhibited in 1923 as one element of the designs for the three projects that sought to integrate architecture and painting or colour. The floor plans show frames in the primary colours red, blue, and yellow. In this process of integration, the coloured frames in primary colours form the first addition of colour to the greyscale designs and as such forecast the colour analysis and contra-constructions. This interpretation highlights the importance of knowing the intentionality behind the addition of the coloured frames, when they were added, and whether they were contemporary with the architectural designs for the 1923 exhibition.

Who created the reds, blues and yellows?

The floor plans arrived in the conservation studio in separate batches without the information that the nine plans were designed as a single set or that the coloured frames were significant to the design. This information was not part of the object’s documentation at the HNI, nor had it appeared in the secondary literature or the catalogue raisonné.¹⁴ It was the similarities in the mounting methods and the remarkable coloured tape frames, which do not appear in any other works by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren that were part of the conservation project, that triggered the conservation team’s research. After learning about the context of the 1923 exhibition for which the floor plans were designed, the team aimed to understand who created them.

Initially, the 1923 exhibition sought to demonstrate a collective idea or expression of the De Stijl group as a whole, and many of its members were expected to participate.¹⁵ In the end, however, only the works of Van Doesburg, Van Eesteren, and Gerrit Rietveld were presented prominently, with a few contributions from other members.¹⁶ As such, the exhibition was reduced to a collaboration among only a few individuals, with Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren as the main contributors, since Rietveld only created a single maquette for Hôtel Particulier.¹⁷

The “red” floor plans display the ground, first, and second floors of Hôtel Particulier. This is a design for a villa for Leonce Rosenberg (1879–1947), the gallery owner who invited Van Doesburg to organise the exhibition on De Stijl. In June 1923, only three months before the start of the exhibition, Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg started to work more systematically on the designs for the three buildings. Van Eesteren made the first design of the floor plan for Hôtel Particulier in March 1923. The final design, from August 1923, shows little influence by Van Doesburg, and as a result the architectural design is commonly attributed to Van Eesteren alone.¹⁸ Bock notes, however, that the two discussed and exchanged designs for the buildings in the months prior to the exhibition, and as such the designs for the three buildings stem from those discussions as well as their individual contributions. Later, however, Van Doesburg complained about how little influence he had on the Hôtel design.¹⁹ On August 6, about two months before the start of the exhibition, Van Eesteren sent the designs to fellow De Stijl member Gerrit Rietveld, who would make the maquette for the exhibition. The maquette for Hôtel Particulier was, however, not finished in time for Van Doesburg to add colour to it, leaving the synthesis of colour and architecture as discussed above incomplete (see the uncoloured maquette in the foreground in Fig. 1).

All nine plans are collages: the lines and shapes marking the outlines of the building are not drawn, but pasted pieces of dark paper. An interesting feature of the ground floor is the use of sandpaper to represent the gravel of the tennis field in the top left corner (Fig. 2). The coloured frames on the three “reds” consist of varying materials. The red painted frames on the ground-floor plan contrast with the unpainted brown paper tape on the plans of the first and second floor. Additionally, in the top right corner of the second-floor plan, a bit of red tape has become visible. The various layers of tapes will be further analysed below, but the variety of tapes already suggests that the objects have been modified over time. Additionally, the many stains and drop marks indicate that the works have not been well preserved since their initial creation (see the ground-floor and first-floor plans in Fig. 1 for comparison). Some lines on the ground-floor plan and the lighter area in the top right corner of the first-floor plan have been retouched.

The “blue” set of floor plans of Maison Particulière, a design for a house, was based on architectural principles similar to those for the Hôtel but in more modest proportions and at a very different scale.²⁰ For Maison Particulière, the consensus is that Van Eesteren developed the floor plans as well as the axonometric projections, while Van Doesburg added the colour to the latter and offered an artistic interpretation with the contra-constructions (see “Materiality and Concept” above).²¹ According to Bock, Van Eesteren designed the floor plans for Maison Particulière based on his earlier design titled Huis Pijl (1923). The similarities of the floor plans of these two designs indicate that Van Doesburg had little to no influence on the architectural design of the floor plan.²² As with the Hôtel, it seems that Van Doesburg’s primary contribution was to add colour to the architectural design and to remove the architectural structure in the contra-constructions. The maquette for this project was completed and coloured on time by the duo themselves, who can be seen balancing it on a stool in the left room of the exhibition (Fig. 5).

Technically, the collages of Maison Particulière were produced in the same manner as Hôtel Particulier, but instead of painted brown paper, these have blue-glazed paper frames. The first floor, on the left, has a light blue frame made of blue polyvinyl chloride tape, and the ground floor, on the right, has a different, noticeably darker blue painted frame than the second floor. The paper substrate of the ground floor shows drop stains and is tensioning in the corners, indicating that the work was locally adhered to the backboard at some point.

The “yellow” set—Maison d’Artiste—contains the smallest house of the three projects and was the last to be designed. According to historian Kees Somer, Maison d’Artiste could be regarded as the pinnacle of collaboration between the architect and the painter, with an almost equal contribution from both.²³ Whether this interpretation is adequate remains to be seen, as Bock points out that this design is, like Maison Particulière, based on another project. He states that the initial design of Maison d’Artiste was based on a sketch quickly drawn up by Van Doesburg for the family Groutars-Scholte and his ideas for a house in “bi-carré.”²⁴ Van Eesteren was not in agreement with these designs by Van Doesburg and modified them to be used for the Maison d’Artiste project.²⁵ In contrast to the previous two designs, Van Doesburg developed the first concept, but in terms of the division of labour, Van Eesteren was responsible for providing the proper architectural plan to ensure the design was structurally feasible. Later, Van Doesburg would characterise Van Eesteren’s floor plans as “displaced bi-carré” and considered Van Eesteren’s “architectural education” (i.e. Van Eesteren’s architecturally necessary technical modifications) as “a confusion of his Maison d’Artiste.”²⁶

The collages for Maison d’Artiste depict the first, second, and third floors and have yellow-glazed paper frames; a fourth collage of the ground floor remains lost. As in the other plans, some paper collage strips are missing and have not been replaced or retouched. The first floor shows stains while the others do not, perhaps because they were stored on top of each other and the first-floor plan was uncovered at the top. The yellow set is the only one with glazed paper frames of a single type without additions of pressure-sensitive tapes like those on the blue floor plans or the brown gummed tape on the red plans. The pinholes in the corners of the third floor reveal a past hanging method similar to that of the three red plans of Hôtel Particulier and the first-floor plan of the blue Maison Particulière.

A detailed comparison of the floor plans reveals notable similarities in their material construction. They are all collages with paper and ink on machine-made paper, mounted on boards by folding the paper around the board and covering it with coloured frames. A clear difference, however—apart from the different levels of collaboration when creating the floor plans—is the structure of the coloured frames. The frames appear to consist of at least six different surface materials, including red and blue paint, brown paper, a blue polyvinyl chloride tape, glazed paper tape in blue and yellow, and transparent tape. The different layers of tape we see today indicate that layers of tape were added over time and also that the frames have not always had their present appearance. As such, the frames do not unequivocally display a consistent method of mounting, raising questions about who added the frames and when.

As the frames are visible in Figure 1, it is clear that the coloured frames were added during preparations for the exhibition. Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren had to work against the clock to finish everything on time, and their working relationship increasingly became a rational division of labour rather than a coproduction in which both could be named architect and artist.²⁷ The pressure of the deadline made a division of work according to their respective skills and knowledge seem the most likely.

The collaboration of Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg has been a subject of significant debate in the literature, primarily fuelled by claims of authorship from both creators. Soon after the initial exhibition in 1923, each had already claimed to be the sole creator of the designs.²⁸ In an agitated letter on authorship, Van Doesburg writes to Van Eesteren that he is the “geestelijk uitvinder” (ideational inventor) and Van Eesteren only the “praktische uitvinder” (practical inventor) of the works.²⁹ From this remark, we may consider Van Eesteren the “purpose-artist” or artistic contractor who drew up the plans on which Van Doesburg created the colour analyses and contra-constructions. Continuing along this line, Van Eesteren would then be the architect behind all the floor plans, while Van Doesburg provided the artistic influence and colours.³⁰ This role division in constructing and colouring mirrors how Van Doesburg worked with another architect in the years before he met Van Eesteren.³¹ It is also supported by the consistency of the handwriting on the floor plans, which is all Van Eesteren’s.³²

The floor plans, of course, lack any form of colour other than the frames. The primary colours red, blue, and yellow are typical for De Stijl and very important to Van Doesburg’s colour theory, and thus it is difficult to believe that Van Doesburg was not involved in adding these colours to the plans.

Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren had to fully finance and assemble the exhibition on their own.³³ Due to their limited funds at the time, it is likely that the more practical Van Eesteren not only created the collages but also mounted the floor plans himself.³⁴ Even though he seems the probable creator, whose hand actually pasted on the frames cannot be stated with certainty. We could even imagine, for example, that Van Doesburg’s third wife, Nelly van Moorsel, assisted with the mounting, as she supported them day and night throughout these years.³⁵

After the exhibition: from colour to greyscale

Following the De Stijl exhibition at Galerie l’Effort Moderne in the fall of 1923, the process of integrating painting and architecture was continued by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren. After all, the projects were not finished and the buildings had not been executed. To continue publishing and exhibiting their designs and ideas, Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren hired Paul Lemare to photograph their designs, including the maquettes.³⁶ The greyscale photos were intended for publication in De Stijl magazine to continue discussions of the designs in future issues.³⁷

Important for the conservation dilemma is the fact that none of the floor plan reproductions made by the creators include coloured frames—even in greyscale.³⁸ By creating the greyscale photographs, the creators incompletely reproduced their works of art in a new material medium. In doing so, the artistic value of the non-replicated material elements (e.g., colour and paint) as well as that of the reproduction itself can be questioned. Many of the works produced by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren exist in a grey area, functioning as both architectural plans and singular works of art. Sometimes this resulted in reproductions that were acceptable to an architect, but not to an artist.

Working within a small budget after the exhibition, Van Eesteren hired a photographer, but Van Doesburg, who was no longer in Paris, did not approve of the photos. Van Doesburg complained to Van Eesteren in multiple letters, urging him to request a refund from the photographer, because the images did not capture the designs properly. He was upset about how poor the colour analyses looked in greyscale. A section of their correspondence is cited below.

Van Doesburg writing to Van Eesteren, November 23, 1923 (translation by the author):³⁹

“Beste C!

Jammer dat de foto’s voor het merendeel onbruikbaar zijn. Van de modellen zijn alle slecht, behalve die in vogelvlucht gezien en Huis Rosenberg. De platte gronden zijn goed, maar de kleur-analysen zijn ook zwak. Voorts mankeert aan alle wat, troebel, onzuiver, zwarte vlekjes enz, Ook zijn ze te klein, zelfs de grootste. Alleen die van jouw Universiteit (de plattengronden enz) zijn goed van grootte. De vloer is heelemaal maar niet gemaakt, terwijl ook geen opname van de achterzaaltjes gemaakt is. Ik was zeer teleurgesteld. Een zooitje. Ook geen hoogglans. De 5 groote foto’s van de modellen kunnen we dus niet gebruiken. Geef ze dus vooral snel voor reproductie. De fout hiervan is dat het model, niet het huis gefotografeerd werd. (…) Die belichting met reflector is te scherp, waardoor alle kleine gebreken van het model gefotografeerd zijn. Jammer van het weggesmeten geld. Kun je het die vent niet over laten doen. We behoeven ze toch niet te accepteren als ze slecht zijn! Wie gaat nu een model op het voetstuk fotografeeren! Blöd! Ik meende, dat ik het aan jou kon overlaten, daar jouw opnamen goed waren en veel geschikter voor clichée…”

Dear C!

Shame that most of the photos are unusable. The models are all badly captured, except for those from a bird’s-eye view and House Rosenberg. The floor plans are good, but the colour analyses are poor too. All have flaws, opaque, unclear, black spots, etc. They are too small, even the largest ones. Only the ones of your University (the floor plans etc.) are the right size.⁴⁰ The floor is completely omitted, neither are the back rooms. I was very disappointed. A mess. No glossy photo paper either. The 5 large photos of the models are unusable. Make sure to give them [the photos or the models] quickly for reproduction. The mistake is that the model is photographed rather than the house. . . . The light of the reflector is too strong, thereby showing all the flaws of the model. Shame of the wasted money. Can’t you have that bloke redo it? We do not have to accept them if they are poor. Who photographs a model on a pedestal! Blöd! I thought I could leave this to you, as your captures were good and much better for cliché.⁴¹

As the letter shows, Van Doesburg was not happy with how the photos represented their work for the 1923 exhibition, including the floor plans. Therefore, he decided to retouch the glass plate negatives and cover the stool on which the maquette was displayed with paper tape (Fig. 24). In doing so, he continued the experimental process of the designs.⁴² The fact that Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren were creating materially different reproductions of the original floor plans has implications for how the creators viewed their works of art. While the greyscale photos could be used to reproduce Van Eesteren’s architectural design, they were of limited use in transmitting Van Doesburg’s colour analysis. Architects in the early twentieth century often used reproduction techniques such as light printing (e.g., diazotypes) to edit and modify plans on a copy of the original. As such, an architectural design could be regarded as an instruction sheet for construction, a document not necessarily limited by its medium and materiality, as a work of art would be.

Many of the designs in the Van Doesburg Collection at Het Nieuwe Instituut (HNI) are diazotypes identical to those generally used by architects. But, in contrast to other architects, Van Doesburg applied colour to the diazotypes, effectively making the reproduction technique unusable. Due to the greyscale light-printing technique, if an architect designs a red wall, he would normally write the word red on the reproduction. Van Doesburg, however, often applied red paint to the diazotype—which, of course, cannot be reproduced with light printing. In doing so, the reproducible technical drawing was changed by the artist to a singular object that is constrained by its medium and materiality. An example of this is the coloured design in Figure 8. For an architect, the end product is normally the building itself, and any other expression of the design is therefore a preliminary state in the process toward that end. When an architect reproduces a design, both versions are considered preliminary states of the actual building. In this regard, the painter’s practice is fundamentally different. For a painter, any expression of a design can be the end product—that is, a work of art.

In an interview given shortly before the 1923 exhibition, Van Doesburg stated that “the art of painting has to guide the art of building. . . . The colour visualises the spatial effect intended by the architect. In this manner, colour completes the architectural design.”⁴³ These remarks further underline that for Van Doesburg colour was just as essential as structure for a building design. The coloured frames on the architectural floor plan are the first introduction of colour in the process of integrating painting and architecture. Colour also transforms the reproducible architectural design into a singular art object. This became immediately apparent when the floor plans were reproduced: all the reproductions lack the coloured frames. The latter are only present on the mounted collages and not in any other versions of the plans. As a consequence, the coloured frames of the mounted floor plans were forgotten, and over time their meaning was lost, as will be discussed below.

Reproductions and originals

Among the first sources the conservation team looked for when researching the nature of the coloured frame tapes were photographs of the works made in the past century. These pictures not only capture the varying stages of damage or deterioration over time, but also assist in identifying later modifications. As the pictures made by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren did not include the frames, this set the tone for many subsequent reproductions.

The omission of the coloured frames in the photo reproductions is at odds with the original collages exhibited in 1923. Despite this, in the De Stijl exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum in 1968, the photocopy (Fig. 25) of the original collage of the ground-floor plan for Maison d’Artiste was used as a replacement for the collage that was lost.⁴⁴ In this case, the photograph of the lost collage served as an effective reproduction of the architectural plan, but of course, it failed to transmit the colour of the original collage.

Historiographical difficulties arise because reproductions have been continuously but used in the literature as substitutes for the original collages.⁴⁵ In 2016 historian Dolf Broekhuizen reproduced the photo reproduction of the ground-floor plan of Maison d’Artiste (Fig. 25) next to the collages of the other floors with the yellow frames cut off as if they do not exist.⁴⁶ From the accompanying text, the reader is led to believe that all four images display originals. The habit of depicting the reproductions as the originals is not limited to the monograph by Broekhuizen, but also extends to the catalogue raisonné published by historian Els Hoek in 2000, in which some of the original collages are reproduced with frames while others have the frames cut off.⁴⁷ Additionally, the collage of the ground floor of Hôtel Particulier is omitted from the catalogue raisonné, and instead another photo reproduction is printed as if it were the original collage.⁴⁸ Clearly, the meaning of the coloured frames has been lost over time.

Since Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren had the reproductions made themselves and historians continue to reproduce and discuss the works, omissions and obscurities related to the nature of the original and the reproduction have slipped into the discourse. The material perspective of the conservators calls attention to the importance of the material properties of artworks. As scholars work increasingly with digitised sources, they should be aware that their knowledge is constrained by what is visually presented to them in print and online. They are, therefore, prone to omit what could have been perceived when encountering the original physical object.

Nine material biographies

The conclusion that the coloured frames of the works were part of the initial design of the floor plans in 1923 allows us to better interpret the photograph of the 1923 exhibition (Fig. 1 and 35). With the exception of this image, photo reproductions in the literature often do not show the coloured frames. Moreover, the three projects are often discussed separately from each other; the projects were presented as a set in the context of the 1923 exhibition, but subsequently they were treated as separate projects.

In order for the conservation team to understand what happened to the nine floor plans after 1923, a material analysis of the frames was undertaken to clarify the artistic relevance of each layer of the coloured frames. That allowed us to identify the original coloured frame depicted in the photo taken at the 1923 exhibition (Fig. 35). Combining the material analysis with a timeline of the exhibition history, a material biography of the history and changes of the objects over time could be created (Fig. 35). No records of previous conservation treatments exist, and thus no background knowledge could be used to date the layers, but the exhibition labels on the backs of the plans offered some clues.

The exhibition timeline functions as a material chronicle that has been constructed by combining material analysis of the tapes with labels and records of the exhibition history. This material chronicle summarises what happened to the plans after their initial creation.

The first thing to note on the timeline (Fig. 36) is that Maison d’Artiste, indicated by the yellow line, has been exhibited most often. Perhaps the smaller size of the yellow plans and continued interest in the works by museums resulted in better preservation. Second, it seems that after 1923 the three projects were not exhibited again as a set. This could be explained by the fact that Hotel Particulier, indicated by the red line, was part of Van Eesteren’s collection, while the other two projects were part of Van Doesburg’s collection. Van Eesteren and Van Doesburg may have exchanged the previously mentioned photo reproductions as tokens for the lost access to the works. If the reproductions of the floor plans of the other two projects were indeed part of Van Eesteren’s collection, it seems that the two divided up the collection among themselves some time after 1924, the date of the last exhibition of all ten floor plans together.

Material analysis of the red plans

The plans of Hôtel Particulier contain a limited number of labels. The back of the ground-floor plan (Fig. 26) reveals that it is mounted on strawboard with brown gummed tape frames that were painted red on the front. In contrast, the backs of the other two floor plans are mounted on a board with grey paper that has red frames of glazed paper overlaid with brown gummed paper (Figs. 27, 28). The ground floor was remounted at some point on strawboard (the yellowish board in Fig. 26). On top of the red-glazed paper, the first and second floor have the same brown gummed paper that can be found on the ground floor. On the ground floor, a layer of red paint was added, apparently to mimic the red-glazed paper (Fig. 38). It is not certain why the brown paper was added over the red-glazed paper. Since the red paint is also applied on gummed brown tape, it is possible that the other had not yet been painted (see Fig. 38).

An eight-sided label is present on seven of the nine works (Figs. 36, 37). The address on the label, “Klimopstraat 18,” was the residence of Van Doesburg’s second wife, Lena Milius (1889–1968), from 1920 to 1926.⁴⁹ Therefore, the floor plans were likely mounted in or before 1923, and the eight-sided label dates from 1923 or 1924 (see Fig. 36). The strawboard ground floor of Hôtel Particulier (Fig. 26, 37) lacks the eight-sided label but has a label of the MoMA exhibition in the top right corner. Also missing the eight-sided label is the second-floor plan of Maison Particulière (Fig. 30). However, since the nine works were made as a set for the 1923 exhibition, the eight-sided label is likely to have been originally intended for all nine works. The frames of the red floor plans differ significantly from the other two sets with their brown paper. This difference might be rooted in the fact that the Hôtel project ended up in Van Eesteren’s archive some time after 1924 (Fig. 36).

The backs of the floor plans for Maison Particulière (Figs. 29–31) as well as Maison d’Artiste (Figs. 32–34) display grey paper similar to that of the first- and second-floor plans of Hôtel Particulier, indicating that this was likely the primary mounting method. Maison d’Artiste has the most labels remaining and seems to be the most consistently mounted overall, featuring only one layer of yellow-glazed paper. In contrast, Maison Particulière has multiple layers of various types of tapes. Labels from the Kunsthalle Basel and the Van Abbemuseum are only present on the blue and yellow plans (Fig. 37). Based on the exhibition records of Het Nieuwe Instituut, the label of the Van Abbemuseum contains the exhibition dates of December 12, 1968–January 26, 1969, and therefore must be linked to the exhibition titled Theo van Doesburg: 1883-1931. The Basel label could be linked to the travelling exhibition Theo van Doesburg: 1883-1931 that started in the Van Abbemuseum and was also held in the Kunsthalle Basel (June-July 1969), but most likely refers to the exhibition titled Die Konstruktivisten held from January 16-February 14, 1937.⁵⁰ The MoMA label is dated by HNI to 1952 and therefore must refer to the De Stijl exhibition of December 16, 1952–February 15, 1953. This label is only present on the three red floor plans.

Material analysis of the blue plans

The current ethical standard in paper conservation is to preserve as much of the existing material as possible. For the floor plans, the position of RNA’s conservation team was that elements proven not to be part of the initial design could only be removed from the object when those elements were seen to be damaging or potentially damaging the object over time. Intervention was agreed upon for the ground-floor plan of Maison Particulière. This floor plan had previously been lifted from the original board, and warm animal glue was added on three corners, resulting in much tension and creasing of the paper substrate. Since the work had been previously lifted, the sides of the artwork had already been cut, and a new layer of darker blue-glazed paper was added. In the treatment, the conservation team lifted the work again to remove the tension and to insert an acid-free paper layer between the backboard and the artwork. The layers of blue-glazed paper were only consolidated to avoid obscuring the existing layers of glazed paper.

The other two blue-framed floor plans showed more complex additions on top of the glazed paper, consisting of multiple layers of pressure-sensitive transparent tape, polyvinyl chloride tape, and dark blue paint. In this instance, the conservation team decided to readhere all the layers of detached pressure-sensitive tape to the frames to preserve the modifications of the frames made after 1923 (Fig. 39). The transparent tape seemed to have been added later to re-create the shine of glazed paper, and as such, it is now part of the object’s history. The dark blue paint was probably added after the work was lifted the first time as a way of retouching and to cover lacunae in the glazed paper-tape frame. A similar effect was attempted with the PVC tape. but given the fact that only the first floor has PVC tape with blue paint on top can indicate that the PVC tape was added in a different treatment than the blue paint layers. Additionally, only two of the three were given a new layer of transparent tape, presumably at a later time than the paint layer (see the models in Fig. 39).

Material analysis of the yellow plans

The mounting of the three yellow plans of Maison d’Artiste are the most contemporary and most intact. By comparing these with the models of the other six plans, it was determined that the coloured frames were originally made of glazed paper. The frames show no significant colour fading from light exposure when comparing the front and back. The mechanically unaltered state of the yellow paper frames (Fig. 40) highlights the extent to which the reds and blues were modified over time. Furthermore, these unaltered frames support the theory that the ground-floor plan of Hôtel Particulier was remounted at some point and originally had red-glazed paper frames, as is visible on the backs of the first- and second-floor plans (Figs. 27, 28). The presence of the MoMA label on all three plans of Hôtel Particulier indicates that the brown gummed tape as well as the strawboard date from before the MoMA exhibition in 1952. Whether the red paint dates from that period as well cannot be stated with certainty.

Conclusion

From the literature and at HNI, it was known that the three architectural projects discussed above were designed for the 1923 exhibition at Galerie l’Effort Moderne in Paris. Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren continued to make reproductions of works for the projects after the exhibition, and it was known that the floor plans (the collages and their later reproductions) were part of these projects. It was, however, unknown that the floor plan collages of the three projects were designed as a single set for the 1923 exhibition. In part, this was because the floor plans were never studied materially, but also because the catalogue raisonné and other secondary sources confused the later reproductions with the original collages. Additionally, the coloured edges were never printed in colour in the secondary literature, and the use of coloured tape by members of De Stijl as such was not previously documented. The article establishes the link between the coloured frames on the floor plans and the photograph of the 1923 exhibition, and formulates a material biography of the floor plans. This allows us to date the first layer of coloured tape and to identify De Stijl’s practice of using coloured tapes.

The floor plan collages arrived in separate batches at the conservation studio, and at first sight, the many different layers of tape and paint on the frames made a chaotic and incoherent impression. The conservation team discovered, however, that underneath all the layers there is a consistent method of mounting. Based on the material homogeneity of the glazed paper, the mounting techniques, and the address on the eight-sided label, it was concluded that all nine floor plans were mounted for the 1923 exhibition. The three projects designed by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren—Hôtel Particulier, Maison Particulière, and Maison d’Artiste—were central to the exhibition and demonstrated the integration of architecture and painting, an important concept within De Stijl. Materially, the floor plans form a set and tell us the story of Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren’s partnership for the 1923 exhibition in Paris.

Although Van Doesburg had a conceptual influence on the designs of the three projects, the material consistency of the floor plans indicates that they were all created by Van Eesteren. The floor plans are collages created to be exhibited. The papers on which the collages are pasted were made with sufficient margins to be folded around the boards and adhered to the back. As such, typical reproducible architectural designs were displayed as works of art with coloured frames.

Given the significance of the primary colours for Van Doesburg’s colour theory, the choice for the coloured frames on the floor plans signifies artistic meaning. On a conceptual level, the three projects for which the nine designs were made served as an experiment to integrate the practices of a painter with those of an architect. They were an artistic attempt to replace structure in architecture with colour, as is fully expressed in Van Doesburg’s contra-constructions. The addition of the frames in red, yellow, and blue to the floor plans constitutes the first stage of the transformation of Van Eesteren’s greyscale architectural designs to Van Doesburg’s colourful artistic designs. However, with this addition of colour, the floor plans became irreproducible following traditional architectural practice, as becomes clear in their photo reproductions—where the coloured frames were no longer present, offering one explanation for why they have been overlooked by art historians.

After the 1923 exhibition, the experiment was continued in publications, reproductions, and discussions but never finished. Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren operated in a grey area between works of art and designs for construction. The many materials and techniques they used for the original floor plans and their reproductions created tension between colour and structure and between singularity and (mass) reproduction. Because these buildings remained unexecuted, the envisioned synthesis draws even greater attention to the experimental element of the process. With regard to these works by Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren, the question recurs: Can painting and colour actually be integrated with architecture, or is it rather an indication of the constraints that result in a rational division of labour?

As for the conservation dilemma that started this investigation, the RNA team decided to readhere the transparent tapes as well as the PVC tape. The modifications of the layers of tape that have been added over time show that the coloured frames have had a significant impact on the beholders of the designs—and continue to do so. The material analysis of the coloured frames of the nine floor plans from the conservator’s perspective has proved essential in unravelling the historical context in which the plans were made and circulated in the years after their creation.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Elza van den Berg and Huub Breuer from Het Nieuwe Instituut for providing all the archival records and images that were required for this research. Without their enthusiasm and optimism, this paper would not have been realised. I would also like to thank Sjoerd van Faassen for providing access to his transcriptions of Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren’s letters. Many thanks to my colleagues Elizabet Nijhoff Asser and Herre de Vries for all their support. Finally, I extend my gratitude to the Materia team for their thorough peer review and editing.

Bibliography

Bock, Manfred. “Cornelis van Eesteren.” In De vervolgjaren van De Stijl, 1922–1934, edited by Carel Blotkamp, 241–94. Amsterdam: L. J. Veen, 1996.

Broekhuizen, Dolf. “True-to-Life Experiences: Initiatives for Model Homes and Reconstructions.” In Maison d’Artiste: Unfinished Icon by De Stijl Icon, edited by Dolf Broekhuizen, 25–34. Rotterdam: nai010, 2016.

Broekhuizen, Dolf. “Interpreting the Maison d’Artiste: Historiography of a Design.” In Maison d’Artiste: Unfinished De Stijl Icon, edited by Dolf Broekhuizen, 53–88. Rotterdam: nai010, 2016.

Hoek, Els, ed. Theo van Doesburg: Oeuvre catalogus. Bussum: Thoth, 2000.

Munk, Jurjen. Van Doesburg klaar voor de toekomst, 2022, RNA restauratie nijhoff asser, Amsterdam (accessed September 29, 2024), https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/[https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/](https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/).

Somer, Kees. “We worked evermore fully together’: Van Eesteren en de ‘collective construction.” in Maison d’Artiste: Unfinished De Stijl Icon, edited by Dolf Broekhuizen, 43–52. Rotterdam: nai010, 2016.

Theo van Doesburg: 1883-1931 ; Stedelijk van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 13 december 1968 tm 26 januari 1996, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 7 februari tm 23 maart 1969, Kunsthalle Basel, Juni/Juli 1969. S.l.: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1968.

Van Doesburg, Theo. “De betekenis van kleur in binnen- buitenarchitectuur.” Bouwkundig Weekblad 44 (1923): 234–32.

Van Faassen, Sjoerd, and Herman van Bergeijk. ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt’: De briefwisseling tussen Theo van Doesburg en Cornelis van Eesteren, 1922–1931. N.p.: Rode Haring, 2022.

Van Faassen, Sjoerd, and Herman van Bergeijk. De kleur lost de architectonische ruimte op: de briefwisseling tussen Theo van Doesburg en architect C.R. de Boer, 1920-1929. Haarlem: Uitgeverij Eigenbouwer, 2019.

Van Faassen, Sjoerd, and Hans Renders. Ik sta helemaal alleen: Biografie Theo van Doesburg. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2022.

Van Moorsel, Wies. Nelly van Doesburg, 1899–1975. Nijmegen: SUN, 2000.

Van Straaten, Evert. Theo van Doesburg, Schilder en Architect. Den Haag: Sdu, 1988.

Archival Sources

Manifesto V of De Stijl, Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.360.

Documenten betreffende de Stijl-tentoonstelling, Parijs 1923, Collectie Nieuwe Instituut EEST, 3.360.

Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.364; and AB5343.

All figures of the works listed below are with courtesy from Archive Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam[Archive Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam](https://zoeken.nieuweinstituut.nl/en/)

• EEST, 3.360n1

• EEST, 3.178-3.181

• EEST, 11n4

• DOES, 028-030

• DOES, AB126-129

• DOES, AB5302+

• DOES, AB5115

• DOES, AB5117

• DOES, AB5125

Figures 2-4, 18, 19, and 23 are photographs by RNA - restauratie nijhoff asser.

Notes

1. The article is based on a presentation delivered at the Architectuur Dichterbij Conference, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, November 2, 2022.

   Jurjen Munk, “Van Doesburg klaar voor de toekomst,” 2022, accessed September 28, 2024, https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/[https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/](https://www.restauratie-na.nl/van-doesburg-klaar-voor-de-toekomst/). ↩︎

2. Evert van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, Schilder en Architect (Den Haag: Sdu,1988), 108, 115, 138. ↩︎

3. Theo van Doesburg to Cornelis van Eesteren, [late January 1923], in Sjoerd van Faassen and Herman van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt’: De briefwisseling tussen Theo van Doesburg en Cornelis van Eesteren, 1922–1931 (n.p.: Rode Haring, 2022), letter 5. ↩︎

4. Manfred Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” in De vervolgjaren van De Stijl, 1922–1934, ed. Carel Blotkamp (Amsterdam: L. J. Veen, 1996), 248, 252–53. ↩︎

5. Bock, 257. ↩︎

6. Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, [Weimar, early July 1922], in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoed,’ letter 1; Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 252. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. ↩︎

7. Manifesto V of De Stijl, Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.360; Sjoerd van Faassen and Hans Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen: Biografie Theo van Doesburg (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2022), 440–43. ↩︎

8. For an overview of most of the designs for these projects, see Theo van Doesburg: Oeuvre catalogus, ed. Els Hoek (Bussum: Thoth, 2000), 343–70 (cited hereafter as Oeuvre catalogus). ↩︎

9. Also see Van Doesburg to Anthony Kok, October 18, 1923, as cited by Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 257; and Van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, 111. ↩︎

10. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 246. ↩︎

11. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 246. Van Doesburg’s Beeldende Constructie-leer and other theories are listed in note 114. ↩︎

12. Van Faassen and Renders, 248–249. ↩︎

13. Van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, 22. Van Straaten paraphrases from De Stijl 2 (1918): 10–12. ↩︎

14. Hoek, Oeuvre catalogus, 345, 363. ↩︎

15. Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 250–52; ‘Theo van Doesburg to Cornelis van Eesteren, [early July 1922] (see note 7 above); Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 436, 441–43. ↩︎

16. For a floor plan of the exhibition and list of the works displayed, see Documenten betreffende de Stijl-tentoonstelling, Parijs 1923, Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.360. ↩︎

17. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 440. ↩︎

18. Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 261; Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Clamart, September 2, 1924, in Van Faassen en Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt,’ letter 46. ↩︎

19. Van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, 111; Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Clamart, August 12, 1924 (see note 19 above). ↩︎

20. For an interpretation of the architectural principles, see Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 263. ↩︎

21. Van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, 115; Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 258. ↩︎

22. As analysed by Bock, 263. ↩︎

23. Kees Somer, “‘We worked evermore fully together’: Van Eesteren en de ‘collective construction’,” in Maison d’Artiste: Unfinished De Stijl Icon, ed. Dolf Broekhuizen (Rotterdam: nai010, 2016), 43. ↩︎

24. Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.364 and AB5343. ↩︎

25. Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 269; Hoek, Oeuvre catalogus, 731a, 758b. ↩︎

26. Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 270. ↩︎

27. Bock, 276. ↩︎

28. For an overview of the debate on authorship, see Bock, 253–58, 270; Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt, 17–19; and Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Clamart, August 12 1924, letter 44. ↩︎

29. Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, August 12, 1924, as quoted in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt, 135; Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 432–35. ↩︎

30. Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 257–60. ↩︎

31. From 1920 to 1922, Van Doesburg worked together with the architect Cornelis Rienks de Boer (1881-1966) a row of sixteen small family houses in the Dutch town of Drachten. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 234-46; see also Sjoerd van Faassen and Herman van Bergeijk, De kleur lost de architectonische ruimte op: de briefwisseling tussen Theo van Doesburg en architect C.R. de Boer, 1920-1929, Haarlem: Uitgeverij Eigenbouwer, 2019. ↩︎

32. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 248. ↩︎

33. The archive of Van Eesteren (Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.360, Documenten betreffende de Stijl-tentoonstelling, Parijs 1923) includes a list of the costs of the exhibition drawn up by Van Eesteren. ↩︎

34. Van Faassen and Renders, Ik sta helemaal alleen, 440; Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 223. ↩︎

35. On the importance of Nelly van Moorsel for Theo van Doesburg, see Wies van Moorsel, Nelly van Doesburg, 1899–1975 (Nijmegen: SUN, 2000). ↩︎

36. On the invoice from the photo company Paul Lemare, see Documenten betreffende de Stijl-tentoonstelling, Parijs 1923, Collectie Nieuwe Instituut/EEST, 3.360. ↩︎

37. Nelly van Moorsel and Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Weimar, November 23, 1923, in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt’, letter 9; and an agitated letter from Van Eesteren to Van Doesburg, March 2, 1924, Documenten betreffende de Stijl-tentoonstelling, Parijs 1923. ↩︎

38. Hoek, Oeuvre catalogus, 345, 350, 363–64. ↩︎

39. Nelly van Moorsel and Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Weimar, November 23, 1923, in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt’, letter 9; ↩︎

40. The designs for the hall at the University of Amsterdam were also on display at the 1923 exhibition. ↩︎

41. Nelly van Moorsel and Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren, Weimar, November 23, 1923, in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt’, letter 9; ↩︎

42. Dolf Broekhuizen, “Interpreting the Maison d’Artiste: Historiography of a Design,” in Broekhuizen, Maison d’Artiste, 60, images 52 and 53. See Hoek, Oeuvre catalogus, for an extensive overview of the various reproductions of the artworks; and van Doesburg to van Eesteren, [late January 1923] (see note 4 above). ↩︎

43. “De schilderkunst moet de bouwkunst de weg wijzen . . . . De kleur maakt de ruimtelijke werking, die de architect nastreeft, zichtbaar. Op deze wijze voltooit kleur de architectuur.” Theo van Doesburg, “De betekenis van kleur in binnen- buitenarchitectuur,” Bouwkundig Weekblad 44 (1923): 234–32, as cited in Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 258. ↩︎

44. For a picture of the exhibition “Theo van Doesburg” in Van Abbe Museum (December 13, 1968 – January 26, 1969), see Dolf Broekhuizen, “True-to-Life Experiences: Initiatives for Model Homes and Reconstructions,” in Broekhuizen, Maison d’Artiste, 29. ↩︎

45. Broekhuizen and Hoek are taken here as recent examples, but the confusion reaches back to earlier publications. See, for example, Bock, “Cornelis van Eesteren,” 260, 264, 271; and Van Straaten, Theo van Doesburg, 112, 115. ↩︎

46. Broekhuizen, “Interpreting the Maison d’Artiste,” 70, and the historic photo reproduction on 83. ↩︎

47. Hoek, Oeuvre catalogus, 345, 363. ↩︎

48. Hoek, 345. ↩︎

49. Lena Milius was administrator for De Stijl, and the building she lived in was part of the complex “Berg en Daal,” designed by Stijl member Jan Wils (1891–1972). Van Doesburg to Van Eesteren [late January 1923], in Van Faassen and Van Bergeijk, ‘Onze pénétratie was sterker als jij in je laatste brief vermoedt, letter 5, nn3–4. ↩︎

50. Theo van Doesburg: 1883-1931 ; Stedelijk van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 13 december 1968 tm 26 januari 1996, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 7 februari tm 23 maart 1969, Kunsthalle Basel, Juni/Juli 1969. S.l.: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 1968. ↩︎