Flexbox wrapping nested rows without media query

Question

I've got four div's in a flexbox grid. I want them to wrap two at a time, like this:

+-----------------------+
|  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 
+-----------------------+
+-----------+
|  1  |  2  |
+-----------+    THIS IS WHAT I WANT
|  3  |  4  |
+-----------+
+-----+
|  1  |
+-----+
|  2  |
+-----+
|  3  |
+-----+
|  4  |
+-----+

Now, this seems easy enough, just nest them inside new flex containers and apply flex-wrap, and give the cells some min-widths. However, this has the side-effect of making the middle view look like this:

+-----------+
|  1  |  3  |
+-----------+    NOT WHAT I WANT
|  2  |  4  |
+-----------+

Apparently, flexbox wants to first wrap the inner div's instead of considering them rows. In order to keep all of the other wrapping working, setting flex-basis (to e.g. 100%) for the nested div's is not an option. In order to keep everything dynamic (for instance adding a third cell to one of the rows), setting %-widths on the cells is not an option. And in order to avoid hard breakpoints and base wrapping on (dynamic) content width, I'd really like to avoid media queries.

Can this be achieved with flexbox and without media queries?

JSFiddle

div {
  box-sizing: border-box;
  margin: 2px;
}

.grid {
  display: flex;
  flex-flow: row wrap;
  border: 2px solid blue;
  flex: 1;
}

.cell {
  flex: 1;
  min-width: 100px;
  border: 2px solid red;
  background: white;
  height: 100px;
}

EDIT: I know I can make the inner .grid not wrap at all, but what I really want is for all the cells to wrap below each other if space is super tight. (As in the first illustration.)

Flexbox wrapping nested rows without media query

3 Answers