100th Anniversary of De Stijl – Tinker Redevelops the House where Mondrian was Born

“Follow in the footsteps of Piet Mondrian along the cradles of his unique art. And look through the eyes of the man who kept reinventing himself and his work.” 

 

The Mondrian House in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, has been renovated to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the De Stijl art movement. Tinker imagineers created and produced the multimedia concept (including two immersive video installations) and a new design for the interior, covering everything from entrance, café, and shop to routing and atmosphere.

 

The challenging premise was that most of the original works are in museums all over the world. The assignment was to tell Mondrian’s life story in a new way, suitable for a broad international audience.

 

STRATEGY

Amersfoort is where Mondrian’s cradle stood. His birthplace therefore reflects his life, a focus on the cradles of his abstract art. It tells Mondrian’s story through multimedia – modern, immersive and unique in the world – rather then museology.

 

Visitors walk through the life of this headstrong pioneer of abstract art: from Amersfoort to Winterswijk, and from Amsterdam via Paris and London to New York, his final destination. They get to know his iconic work, his spiritual formation, his interests, and his friends. And join him in his artistic quest.

 

WORKS - We have started the visitor journey with a video installation of Mondrian’s oeuvre. A musical picture story that takes the visitors from his early landscapes and colourful seascapes to the abstract world he is famous for. Accompanied by the contemporary music that he liked, from Ravel to jazz, from Stravinsky to boogie-woogie.

 

NEW YORK - The second installation is about Mondrian’s last years, which he spent in New York. In this vibrating city he made a fresh start: he got rid of the black lines and explored new spaces in his work. Visitors enter Mondrian’s dream world, in which his work, the city, and his favourite music all melt together into one audio-visual spectacle.

 

INTERIOR - The renovation of the interior was based on the concept of an empty canvas. When entering the Mondriaanhuis, you experience a white, bright space. Along the route through the museum, the canvas of his life is gradually filled in. The artistic signposts consist of large, coloured areas that refer to colours from his entire oeuvre, such as the dark greens or pinks from his early period. These have been hand painted in the layered structure that is characteristic of Mondrian.

 

RESULT

The museum concept represents a new approach to the use of film or video in a museum or heritage institution. The carriers are part of the story in themselves. In Works, the video is projected onto a frame of lines and planes that in itself is exemplary of Mondrian’s work. In New York, the carrier is a cube (the most abstract form of his studio) showing Mondrian’s inner and outer world, switching seamlessly between the two. Eventually, the film leaves the canvas, enveloping the visitors and the room in an all-over immersive installation.