The villa, known as The Van Dantzig house, is situated in the wooded area of Santpoort, near the city of Haarlem. Designed for steel manufacturer Van Dantzig in 1959, it is considered to be among architect Gerrit Rietveld’s most impressive designs. The villa consists mainly of geometric shapes and is partly built on a dune. The appearance of the house differs on the two elevations; closed on the North side, completely glazed to the South. Of note are the pastel colour planes in the interior and the glazed brick exterior walls. The house has recently been completely renovated with a lighting scheme for both exterior and interior by Spot On Lichtontwerp.
Rietveld was one of the leading figures of De Stijl, an international platform for visual art, graphics, typography, furniture design, architecture and poetry, founded by artist Theo van Doesburg. Proponents of De Stijl, among which Piet Mondrian, strived for a radical reform of art. They advocated pure abstraction and universality by emphasizing geometry and the use of large coloured areas. As Rietveld grew older, he started using more pastels instead of the primary colours red, blue and yellow.
Spot On designer Paulo van Cuijck used the characteristics of De Stijl as a premise for the lighting design for the villa. As a basic construction, the house has a steel skeleton with clearly visible profile beams. Spot On chose to make this geometry visible at night, by illuminating the profiles. Narrow beam spotlights placed within the beams, create a gentle gradient of light. This way, the construction is revealed, thus prevents a flat appearance. The house is given a distinctive graphic framing.
Rietveld applied various colour planes in the house. Using wall wash and graphic lighting technique, the pastel walls and the blue garage doors are now lit evenly and colourfast at night.
To lighten a dark corner next to the garage, one of the original glazed bricks in the exterior wall has been replaced by a luminous brick. The rest of the garden lighting scheme is yet to be realized which will include bollards resembling the profile beams of the house.
The interior lighting also serves the architecture. Some modernist classics by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand have been applied. Other fixtures perfectly match in style or are integrated unobtrusively. The lines of sight in the house are emphasized by light, the light from the skylights is mimicked at night.
The lighting design revives the Van Dantzig house in a unique, respectful and modernist way.
