He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague from 1950 to 1953 . His first chair designs date from his student days. As a designer at Gispen – from 1953 to 1957, he designed his first steel tube furniture, a polyester armchair and the Panama lamp.  For the Brussels World Fair in 1958, he designed with his father Gerrit Rietveid the stacking chair Mondial. From 1957 to 1963 he came to work at De Cirkel. Here he initially worked with Friso Kramer with which he designed the Repose armchair and a school set. Here he designed the armchair Oasis and the Pyramid chair. In 1954 and 1957 his designs were awarded the gold medal at the Triennale. After 1956 Rietveld worked as an industrial designer on very complex projects such as agricultural machinery, household appliances, new trains and designs of several city buses and trams. Between 1973 and 1979 he was associate professor Industrial Design at the Technical University of Delft.