Gerrit RietveldColor Palette
Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) built his De Stijl palette from three primaries and three non-colors, then put it to work in a chair and a house. This page documents that system with exact hex codes: Rietveld Red (#9D0216) and Rietveld Blue (#2000B1) from the 1918 Red and Blue Chair, the broken white, warm grey, and black that structure the 1924 Schröder House, the canary yellow (#FFFE40) of the chair's rail ends, and the colors that break the system's rules. Together they describe Neoplasticism in three dimensions, and a palette that still applies to graphics, interiors, and product design.
Signature
Signature Colors
Two colors carry Rietveld's De Stijl identity: the carmine red and ultramarine blue named in his Red and Blue Chair. Painted onto the 1918 chair around 1923, these saturated primaries are the chord the rest of the palette answers. They are flat, unmixed hue fields, never graded, and they hold equal weight against the house's white and grey planes.
Rietveld Red
#9D0216
Back panel, dominant warm accentA deep, carmine-leaning red of high saturation and low luminance, matching Rietveld's repeated instruction that the red read as carmine rather than blood. It is the back panel of the Red and Blue Chair, applied as a flat field with no shading, and it carries more visual weight than the blue that answers it.
Rietveld Blue
#2000B1
Seat panel, cool counterweightA saturated ultramarine blue, the deep blue Rietveld specified rather than a cyan-leaning primary. It fills the seat of the Red and Blue Chair and appears on the Schröder House's linear elements, including the chimney, where it was repainted darker at Bep Rietveld's suggestion.
Structural
Structural Neutrals
The house itself supplies the neutrals. Its facades are a collage of flat planes in white and several greys, a system Rietveld fixed on site rather than from a chart. These non-colors do the structural work: they set the large surfaces against which the primaries register, and they keep the composition from collapsing into equal-weight color.
Broken White
#FFFFE4
Wall and ceiling planes, primary groundThe plaster tone Rietveld called broken white: a warm, slightly cream off-white rather than pure titanium white. It covers the largest wall and ceiling areas of the Schröder House, where its warmth keeps the adjoining greys from reading as cold and gives the primaries a soft ground.
Elephant Grey
#978A84
Mid-tone surface, tonal bridgeA warm, ochreous mid grey that Rietveld mixed from white, black, a little ochre, and a speck of red. Restoration architect Bertus Mulder called it a sort of elephant grey. It reads warm next to the primaries and is deliberately not the cool blue-grey that the house's greys drifted toward later.
Light Grey
#D8DCD6
Pale surfaces, recessive panelsThe palest of the house's grey planes, used where a surface needed to recede without becoming white. Rietveld worked these greys by light-reflectance value, deciding how much light each room should throw back, so this tone sits closer to the broken white than most architectural greys do.
The Designer
Gerrit Rietveld trained as a cabinetmaker in his father's Utrecht workshop and only later worked as an architect, which is why his furniture is assembled like joinery rather than sculpture.
The Red and Blue Chair began in 1918 as bare, unstained beech; around 1923, after the De Stijl painter Bart van der Leck urged him to add color, Rietveld repainted a thinner version black with flat fields of red, blue, and yellow. In the chair, red carries the back, blue the seat, yellow the rail ends, and black the frame that ties them together. That chair, and the Schröder House he completed in 1924 with Truus Schröder-Schräder, are the two poles of his color thinking. Both treat color as a way to describe construction: each plane, post, and rail has one job, and its color states that job. Rietveld never issued a specification for the values, and mixed the house's greys on site, so the palette is best understood as a set of roles rather than fixed swatches.
Use sparingly
Accent Colors
Rietveld's accents are the chair's two line-elements: the canary-yellow caps on the rail ends and the black of the frame that holds every plane. Yellow appears on the house too, on thin lintels, posts, and steel that read as drawing lines rather than surfaces. Black does the opposite job, receding into the background so the composition stays legible.
Rietveld Yellow
#FFFE40
Rail ends, linear accents, highlightsA high-luminance canary yellow, specified by Rietveld as canary rather than an orange-leaning yellow. It appears as the capped ends of the wooden rails on the Red and Blue Chair and as thin linear accents on the Schröder House, where it reads as a drawn line rather than a filled plane.
Rietveld Black
#000000
Frames, steelwork, structural lineA full black, used on the chair's frame and on the Schröder House's window and door frames and structural steel. Rietveld valued it for recession rather than weight: painted onto timber frames, it made them read as part of the same flat plane as the surrounding wall instead of standing proud of it.
What to skip
Colors to Avoid
De Stijl's rule is narrow: pure primary hue plus the non-colors of black, white, and grey, applied flat and hard-edged. Anything blended, tinted, or drawn from nature breaks it. The three colors below each fail in a different way: a greyed tint of red, an earth secondary, and a desaturated green with no place in the system.
Dusty Rose
#C0737A
A greyed, desaturated red that reads as a tint of the primary rather than the primary itself. Against Rietveld Red it makes the carmine look muddy, and its softness contradicts the flat, unmixed hue fields the system depends on. Paired with the house greys it flattens into the background.
Terracotta
#CA6641
An earth orange drawn from fired clay, the kind of natural, mixed tone De Stijl excluded by principle. It introduces a secondary hue with no structural role in a system built from three primaries, and its browned warmth drags the palette toward craft and rustic reference.
Muted Sage
#87AE73
A desaturated green sitting between the primaries, at once warmer and duller than the system allows. Rietveld's palette has no green: mixing yellow and blue produces it, but De Stijl treated mixed hues as impure. Against the greys it turns the whole composition soft.
About this palette
The colors here are library-anchored rather than sampled from originals: the De Stijl movement predates digital color, and Rietveld left no hex or RAL specification for the red, blue, yellow, or greys, which he mixed on site and by eye. Each value is therefore the closest named matplotlib color to Rietveld's documented descriptions, drawn from the TU Delft study and the ICOMOS evaluation of the Schröder House: carmine rather than blood red, ultramarine blue, and canary yellow, set against a warm, ochreous elephant grey. Structural and avoided tones are likewise library anchors. Treat every hex as a faithful stand-in, not a measured match.
FAQ
Common Questions
What is the Gerrit Rietveld color palette?+
It is the De Stijl palette Rietveld used in his furniture and his architecture: three pure primaries and three non-colors. The core is Rietveld Red (#9D0216) and Rietveld Blue (#2000B1), the two colors named in his Red and Blue Chair, plus the canary Rietveld Yellow (#FFFE40) on its rail ends. The non-colors are Broken White (#FFFFE4), Elephant Grey (#978A84), and Rietveld Black (#000000). Rietveld built the palette around roles rather than fixed swatches, so this page maps each color to the job it did in the chair and in the Schröder House.
What was Rietveld's approach to color?+
He treated color as a description of construction. Every plane, post, and rail in a Rietveld piece has one structural job, and its color names that job, so the red back of the Chair reads as the load and the blue seat as the surface you sit on. Rietveld also set firm rules for the hue itself: the red had to be carmine, not blood red; the blue ultramarine; the yellow canary, not orange. More unusual, he chose colors for their light-reflectance value, deciding how much light a wall should throw back and then mixing a grey to match.
How do I apply the Rietveld palette in interior design?+
Start with the neutrals. Put Broken White (#FFFFE4) and the greys on the largest surfaces, walls and ceilings, and keep them dominant. Bring in one primary at a time, ideally as a single feature wall, a piece of built-in joinery, or a painted door, never as a full three-primary scheme in one room. Use Rietveld Black (#000000) on window and door frames, where it will recede rather than compete. Reserve Rietveld Yellow (#FFFE40) for trim, hardware, a chair, or a light fitting, and keep every field flat and edge-to-edge. That restraint is what keeps the scheme reading as De Stijl rather than primary-school.
Can the palette work in graphic or brand design?+
Yes, and it suits brands that want to signal rigor and geometric clarity. Work flat: Rietveld Red (#9D0216), Rietveld Blue (#2000B1), and Rietveld Yellow (#FFFE40) read strongest as solid fills with no gradients or shadows. Set type in Rietveld Black (#000000) on Broken White (#FFFFE4) for maximum contrast and legibility, and use the greys for secondary UI surfaces or rules. Keep the primaries to a minority of the layout, exactly as the house keeps color subordinate to its white and grey planes, and align blocks to a strict grid so the composition stays rectilinear.
How is the Rietveld palette different from the Bauhaus color palette?+
Both use red, yellow, and blue, but the Bauhaus color palette is the broader, more pragmatic system. It carries warm off-whites, a concrete grey, and a Workshop Gold accent that reflect the school's ceramics, weaving, and metalwork, and its primary triad is applied across a wide range of media and teaching styles. Rietveld's palette is narrower and stricter: only the three primaries plus black, white, and grey, resolved into rectilinear planes with no gold and no decorative neutral. If the Bauhaus palette is a set of principles, Rietveld's is a closed formal language.
What colors conflict with the Rietveld palette?+
Tints, earth tones, and secondary hues the De Stijl system excludes. A greyed red such as Dusty Rose (#C0737A) weakens the carmine of Rietveld Red by putting a soft tint next to a pure field. An earth orange like Terracotta (#CA6641) imports a natural, mixed secondary color that has no role in a three-primary system. A desaturated green such as Muted Sage (#87AE73) sits between the primaries, where the movement allowed nothing. Any of these will pull the palette toward craft or pastel instead of the flat, unmixed fields De Stijl requires.
Explore More
Browse all color palettes