Gerrit Rietveld Academie

We respect the individual and respect his/her liberty to develop a personal approach and, in this way, to decide on his/her own future. We have opted for the aspects of investigation, the experiment and authorship. In addition, we value an open attitude towards the environment and we are keen advocates of involvement with others and with society.
All of this derives from our confirmed vision of what we think art education should be.

Educational goals
The Gerrit Rietveld Academie seeks to educate artistically talented young people such as to enable them to work independently and professionally in the field of Visual arts and design. The Academie aims to produce graduates that are able to sustain the production of their work independently and that will grow into artistic inspirators in their fields.

Teaching methods
The Rietveld Academie’s teaching methods are aimed at the individual student with substantive appeal to the student’s own contribution and responsibility. The student is coached in his search for personal possibilities and interests.

Other important aspects of the course include reflection on the theoretical and social aspects of Visual arts and Design. Investigation and the experiment play an important role in the pursuit of quality and stimulate new developments within and between the different disciplines.
The student is coached in his development by professional artists and designers. Professional guest lecturers provide insight into their personal vision in their respective artistic fields.

International character
The Rietveld Academie is internationally orientated: around forty percent of the students attending the Academie come from outside the Netherlands and represent more than forty different countries. As a result, English is spoken extensively at the academy and English is also the main language in some classes.

The academy maintains a large number of international contacts and offers regular student exchange programmes with a number of foreign institutions, including with schools in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Lisbon, Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Milan, Jerusalem, and Melbourne.

The school routinely organises collaborative projects and joint activities (exhibitions, publications and workshops). The academy is a co-founder, with the Schule für Gestaltung in Basel, of the AIAS, the International Association of Independent Schools for Art and Design: www.aias-artdesign.org. The association now represents 20 institutions in Europe and abroad (USA, Korea, Japan and China). The academy also collaborates and has exchange programmes with the aforementioned schools.