Richard Meier is well-known for his love of the color white, describing it as “the most wonderful color, because within it you can see all the colors of the rainbow” in his Pritzker Prize acceptance speech. As such, many of his buildings, including the City Hall of The Hague in Netherlands (completed in 1995), are painted head-to-toe in the snowy pigment. But now, all that white has given the building a new unintentional function: as a perfect canvas for the world’s largest Mondrian painting.
The building is one of several in the city that are receiving the “Mondrian treatment,” in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Dutch art movement, De Stijl. The style, ushered in by artists including Piet Mondrian, went on to have a strong impact of architecture of the modern era, its ideas championed by architects including Gerrit Rietveld, Mies van der Rohe, and Charles and Ray Eames.
As home to the world’s largest Mondrian collection (at the Gemeentemuseum), The Hague is celebrating throughout the year with a range of De Stijl-related events. Check out the video of City Hall’s transformation above, and learn more about this year’s events here.
Video via the City of The Hague.
