In 1926 van Doesburg, with artists Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber, obtained the commission to refurbish the interior of a mid-eighteenth-century building to create Café Aubette—large restaurant with a cinema and dancehalls. A painter as well as an architect, van Doesburg used this project to explore his theory of Elementarism, which built upon the concepts of Neoplasticism developed by the de Stijl movement of Dutch abstract artists. In addition to flat planes and rectilinear configurations, Elementarism employed inclined planes and relief to activate compositions. Van Doesburg's schemes for the interior walls of Café Aubette were based on a grid of predominantly gray planes, with vibrant panels in primary colors. Plaster was used to form a relief pattern between panels. Merging architecture and design with painting, van Doesburg also designed ashtrays for Café Aubette, and even the lettering used for the neon-lit facade and other signs.
75 Years of Architecture at MoMA, 2007
Explore more
Neo-Plasticism
An artistic philosophy that called for the renunciation of naturalistic representation in favor of a stripped-down formal vocabulary principally consisting of straight lines, rectangular planes, and primary colors.
Learn more →
From MoMA Design Store
Installation views
We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.