The Rietveld Schröder House (Dutch: Rietveld Schröderhuis; also called the Schröder House) in Utrecht (Prins Hendriklaan 50) was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children.

Mrs. Schröder-Schräder asked the house to be designed without walls. Both Rietveld and Schröder believed in new ideas about family life, such as being open about relationships and honest about emotions. They wanted to remove traditional ideas about respect and proper behavior, which focused on rules, hierarchy, and keeping things private. Instead, the house’s design challenged these ideas in a planned way. Rietveld and Schröder worked together on the project. Rietveld first sketched a design, but Schröder was not happy with it. She wanted a house that felt free and connected the inside with the outside.

The house is one of the most famous examples of De Stijl architecture and is considered the only true De Stijl building. Mrs. Schröder lived in the house until her death in 1985. The house was later restored by Bertus Mulder and is now a museum managed by the Centraal Museum. It has been listed as a monument since 1976 and recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.

Architecture

The Rietveld Schröder House is very different from all buildings that came before it. It is a two-story house located in Utrecht, at the end of a row of buildings. However, it does not look like the houses next to it, even though it shares a wall with the last house in the row. The house faces a highway built in the 1960s.

Inside, the house is not filled with fixed rooms. Instead, there is a flexible, open space. The first floor has a traditional layout, with a kitchen and three rooms that can be used as both sitting and sleeping areas arranged around a central staircase. The house also includes a garage, which was unusual because the owner, Truus, did not own a car. The second floor, described as an attic to meet fire safety rules, is actually a large open space with only a separate bathroom and toilet. Rietveld wanted to keep the upper floor as it was, but Mrs. Schröder wanted it to be usable as both an open area and as separate rooms. This was achieved with sliding and rotating panels. Mrs. Schröder used these panels to open or close the space as needed. A sliding wall between the living area and her son’s room also blocks a cupboard and a light switch, so a circular opening was added to the wall. When all panels are closed, the second floor has three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room. Between the fully open and fully closed states, many different arrangements are possible, each creating a unique space.

The outside of the house has a design made of flat planes and lines that appear to move past each other. This design allowed for several balconies. Like Rietveld’s famous Red and Blue Chair, each part of the house has its own shape, position, and color. Colors were chosen to make the outside walls look more three-dimensional, using white, gray, black window and door frames, and bright colors for some lines.

In the style of the "machine aesthetic," the house does not clearly separate inside and outside spaces. Straight lines and flat surfaces flow from the outside to the inside, using the same colors and materials. The windows are hinged so they can only open 90 degrees, keeping the design clean and continuing the idea of blending inside and outside. The architect aimed to avoid making the house look like a single, solid block.

Construction

At first, Rietveld planned to build the house using concrete. He found out that using concrete for such a small building would cost too much. Only the foundation and the balconies were made of concrete. The walls were built with brick and plaster. The window frames, doors, and floors were made of wood, and the floors were held up by wooden beams. Steel beams with wire mesh were used to help support the structure of the building.

Legacy

After the building was constructed, Polish architect Stanisław Brukalski designed his own house in Warsaw in 1929. This house was likely inspired by the Rietveld Schröderhuis, which he visited. Brukalski’s modern-style house in Poland won a bronze medal at the Paris expo in 1937.

In 2013, the house was featured on two euro coins produced by the Royal Dutch Mint.

The Rietveld Schröder House was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list on December 2, 2000, during the 24th session in Cairns, Australia. The World Heritage Committee used criteria i and ii to evaluate the house.