[1] In 1950 he enrolled as one of the first students of a newly established course in industrial design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Wim Rietveld also introduced foam rubber padding and pressed plywood at the Gispen company.

[1] Rietveld worked on several well-known Gispen furniture pieces, including the President office chair, and several light fixtures.

Next, Rietveld started working for De Cirkel (a daughter of Ahrend), a company that also produced steel furniture, where he became a colleague of Friso Kramer.

Together with Wim Groeneboom, Rietveld designed the first Amsterdam metro, he drew the Dutch 'standard bus' (1966),[5] and he was contracted by companies such as Werkspoor (train interiors) and Inventum (home appliances).