Concealed behind an 18th century Baroque façade in Strasbourg?s Place Kléber, the Café L?Aubette is a dazzlingly incongruous expression of the 1920s De Stijl movement. Designed by Theo van Doesburg, one of the movement?s founders and leading lights, the Aubette?s minimalist, geometric aesthetic was heavily influenced by the work of contemporary artists such as Piet Mondrian. In designing the café?s interiors, Van Doesburg sought to do more than simply place viewers before a painting; he wanted to envelop them in it.

Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

Concealed behind an 18th century Baroque façade in Strasbourg?s Place Kléber, the Café L?Aubette is a dazzlingly incongruous expression of the 1920s De Stijl movement. Designed by Theo van Doesburg, one of the movement?s founders and leading lights, the Aubette?s minimalist, geometric aesthetic was heavily influenced by the work of contemporary artists such as Piet Mondrian. In designing the café?s interiors, Van Doesburg sought to do more than simply place viewers before a painting; he wanted to envelop them in it.
Courtesy of Wikimedia user Claude Truong-Ngoc

The De Stijl movement began in the Netherlands in 1917 by an association of painters, sculptors, decorative artists, and architects. Rejecting the ornamental and spatial dogma of the Beaux-Arts school that had dominated Western design in the 19th century, ...