Rietveld Schröder House – Rietveld Schröder House, The Netherlands

Welcome to the Rietveld Schröder House.

Designed in 1924. A private residence until 1985.
Architectural highlight of De Stijl and iconic landmark in Utrecht.

In 1924, Truus Schröder asked well-known Utrecht furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld to design a new house for her. A recently widowed mother of three, she wanted a dwelling completely attuned to her – and to her unconventional ideas about what a home should be. Having worked with Rietveld in the past, she knew his disdain for tradition. It was a match made in heaven.

Schröder played an important role in the design process. She knew exactly what she wanted: simplicity and a space that freed rather than constrained her.

Until then, Rietveld had created mainly furniture and scale models. His renowned Red and Blue Chair, for example, was designed around 1919. Never before had he been asked to design an entire house.

For Rietveld, Schröder’s project was a dream come true. He pulled out all the stops, trying out new ideas in keeping with De Stijl.

De Stijl was a Dutch artistic movement named after an eponymous modern art magazine first published in 1917. Rietveld was one of the movement’s leading exponents.

The Rietveld Schröder House is an embodiment of De Stijl.

Characteristic features include the fluid transitions between interior and exterior, the clean horizontal and vertical lines and the use of all primary colours, alongside white, grey and black.

Rietveld’s ideal house was spacious, simple and functional. He came up with all kinds of clever solutions to achieve this.

One such idea involved sliding walls on the first floor. By day, this was an open space, but in the evening, the Schröder family could split it up into three separate rooms. There was one room for the daughters, another for the son, and a living room with a table and stove, giving everyone some privacy.

Another of Rietveld’s clever ideas was the iconic corner window on the top floor. Both the large window and the small one perpendicular to it swing open, dissolving the corner to make it feel like one is outdoors.

The staircase is concealed behind a sliding door. This created a quiet spot for the telephone in the hallway and also served to shut out the cold.

Rietveld also came up with the idea to use wooden panels as shutters for the windows. This creates a sense of peaceful security in the house.

This three-dimensionality is equally manifest in the lines of the façade.

Rietveld Schröder House is on Prins Hendriklaan in Utrecht. Back in 1924, it was on the outskirts of the city. Quite literally so, because it looked out on nothing but a vast polder landscape on one side. This beautiful view played a pivotal part in the design.