Rethinking Modern Life:
From the Essential to the Exuberant
Since its founding in 1993, Rietveld Architects has conceived public and private spaces that provide a fresh take on what’s modern. With associates in Amsterdam and Budapest, the New York-based firm serves as a laboratory for design invention where new notions of living, working, and building are evaluated and explored.
Through research alliances with the world’s foremost building and engineering experts, Rietveld Architects has advanced notable building innovations, including the world’s thinnest four-story curtain wall façade for the InHolland College building at Delft University. Rietveld Architect’s pioneering approach to design, construction, and reuse have garnered it numerous honors, including awards from the AIA and SARA, as well as the Top Ten Façade Innovation Award. While high-tech thinking informs all its projects, so too does a high-touch sensibility. In fact, Rietveld Architects has won acclaim for its supremely luxurious designs, expertly curated to suit the taste and requirements of its clients.
Rietveld Architects offers services in architectural and interior design, master planning, landscape schemes, and product and furniture design. Clients include international developers and corporations, municipal governments, universities and schools. Residential architecture in all typologies— affordable housing, high-rise towers, and private homes—is a key focus of the firm.
The distinctive invention of Rietveld Architects derives in large part from the unusual background and interests of its principals, Margaret and Rijk Rietveld.
Rijk Rietveld
The son of a Dutch architect, Rijk studied at the Academy of Building Arts in Amsterdam. During his study, he took a job working for the noted Dutch practitioner Herman Hertzberger, eventually becoming the firm’s lead designer. In 1987, he moved to New York to become an Associate Partner of Richard Meier and Partners, where he was responsible for the design of the Central Library and City Hall in The Hague, the Canal Plus headquarters in Paris, and the headquarters of Compaq in Houston. In 1996, Rijk went on to work for I.M. Pei on the design of the Museum for German History in Berlin. An avowed motor head, he drives a Spyker and is the founder of the Spyker owner’s website. Currently, Rijk and Margaret work on cutting edge, environmental and nature-inclusive designs in the Greater New York area, gaining some work on the West Coast (where their kids currently live) and continuing work in the Netherlands with projects in London, Paris, Italy and tried their hand on some projects in the Middle East and India.
Margaret Rietveld
The daughter of a Polish-born NASA aerospace scientist, Margaret is equally at home in the world of science and engineering as she is in the realms of art and design. She received her Bachelor of Architecture from The College of Architecture Virginia Polytechnic and State University, and her MA in Architecture from Columbia University. Margaret worked for architecture firms in Basel, Amsterdam, and Berlin, before she was hired by I.M. Pei and Partners to join the Grand Louvre team until it was finished. Currently, Margaret and Rijk work on cutting edge, environmental and nature-inclusive designs in the Greater New York area, gaining some work on the West Coast (where their kids currently live) and continuing work in the Netherlands, with projects in London, Paris, Italy and tried their hand on some projects in the Middle East and India.