106 - RIETVELD, Gerrit Thomas (1888–1964) (attributed to) HOPMI HOLLANDSCHE PATENT METAALINDUSTRIE UTRECHT (Produced by)

RIETVELD, Gerrit Thomas (1888–1964) (attributed to) HOPMI HOLLANDSCHE PATENT METAALINDUSTRIE UTRECHT (Produced by) Theater armchair with a folding seat, featuring a red-lacquered steel tube frame. Black-lacquered wooden armrests. Backrest made of curved beech plywood and seat made of molded plywood, both lacquered black; the seat folds down. Under the seat is a blue enameled plate bearing the manufacturer’s mark “HOPMI – Octr. aangevr.” (patent pending). Circa 1934 Height: 91 cm – Width 57 cm – Depth 32 cm with seat raised, and 54 cm with seat lowered - History: Hollandsche Patent Metaalindustrie, founded in Utrecht in 1917, manufactured locks and bicycle accessories; it produced steel-tube furniture only from about 1932 to 1934, in collaboration with the neighboring chair manufacturer U.M.S., later known as Pastoe. Its furniture is assembled using a patented double-threaded “torpedo” nut, developed by its technician Herke Tulp, which allows the pieces to be completely disassembled: this is the invention referred to by the inscription “octrooi aangevraagd” on the plate. A chair using the same system, given to Gerrit Rietveld, is housed at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (inv. 31127). The auditorium model was installed in the Vreeburg cinema in Utrecht—which Rietveld rebuilt in 1936—and in the Remonstrant church on Diepenbrockstraat in Amsterdam, where a few of the firm’s red-lacquered tubular chairs still remain.