ENSEMBLE

The Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) opens the exhibition Ensemble – Gerrit Rietveld and the MAO Collection, presenting original works by one of the most important designers and architects of the 20th century. A private collection of furniture and domestic objects, on public view for the first time, is contextualised within the MAO collection and the history of modernist design in Slovenia. 

Ensemble is the first exhibition in Slovenia to feature original works by Rietveld. The objects on display are from a private collection of furniture and household objects, now on public display for the first time. This collection, built up over several decades from the 1990s onwards, includes many key works from Rietveld’s furniture workshop. Founded in 1917, this workshop became the hub of Rietveld’s creative collaboration with the furniture maker Gerard A. van de Groenekan, where they spent decades developing new designs and producing variations and iterations of his seminal pieces.

The exhibition places this private collection within the broader context of the MAO collection and Slovenian modernist design. The works and projects of Oton Jugovec, Niko Kralj, Marjeta Pirkmajer Kregar, Gizela Šuklje, Ciril Tavčar and others are presented alongside Rietveld’s pieces, linking with them in terms of concept, material, or chronology to form a harmonious whole.