Along with the Rood blauwe stoel (1918), the Zig zag stoel is probably the best-known of Gerrit T. Rietveld's designs. Rietveld takes up Mart StamÙs idea for a cantilevered chair (1926) and makes formal references to the Sitzgeiststuhl of the brothers Heinz and Bodo Rasch (1927). Although it is constructed with four individual boards, the Zig zag stoel represents a variation on an old theme: the chair made from a single piece of wood. It was only four years later that Rietveld succeeded in building the first cantilevered chair made with a single sheet of plywood. Nevertheless, the Zig zag stoel is regarded as an admirable synthesis of form, function and construction. It was produced with and without armrests, with a perforated or solid back surface, and in a child high chair version.
