The Dutch architect and furniture designer Piet Klaarhamer (1874-1954) influenced many of his contemporaries, including the famous Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), who remembers him as a ‘craftsman, predecessor and innovator’. Rietveld was based in Utrecht and came into contact with Klaarhamer through the drawing lessons Klaarhamer gave him between 1904 and 1908, in a studio that the architect shared with his friend Bart van der Leck (1876-1958), another important figure in the De Stijl movement. Through him, Rietveld discovered the works of Berlage (1856-1937) and Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1957), and was immersed in his taste for innovation. In particular, Klaarhamer passed on to him his love of concrete and the cheap materials used in civil architecture. Thus, most of the qualities that we now attribute to Rietveld would seem to have fallen to his teacher. In 1919, however, Klaarhamer withdrew himself, feeling that he had been surpassed by his pupil, who was promoted in his place by Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931).