The Rietveld Schröder House was commissioned by Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder for herself and her three children. Architect Gerrit Rietveld designed the house without walls at her request, to create an open connection between the inside and outside. The ground floor contains a kitchen and bedrooms arranged around a central staircase, while the second floor is an open living area that Mrs. Schröder could partition using a system of sliding and revolving panels. The rectilinear design flows seamlessly from the exterior facades composed of planes and lines in varying colors to the interior spaces.

1. RIETVELD SCHRÖDER HOUSE
SCHRÖDER HOUSE

2.  ABOUT THE HOUSE
• Mrs. Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children.
• She commissioned the house to be designed preferably
without walls
• Rietveld worked side by side with Schröder-Schräder to
create the house. He sketched the first possible design
for the building; Schroder-Schrader was not pleased
• She envisioned a house that was free from association
and could create a connection between the inside and
outside.
• best known examples of De Stijl-architecture

3.  PLAN
• Inside there is no static accumulation of rooms, but a dynamic,
changeable open zone.
• The ground floor can still be termed traditional, ranged around a central
staircase are kitchen and three sit/bedrooms.
• The living area upstairs, stated as being an attic to satisfy the fire
regulations of the planning authorities, in fact forms a large open zone
except for a separate toilet and a bathroom.
• Rietveld wanted to leave the upper level as it was. Mrs Schröder,
however, felt that as living space it should be usable in either form, open
or subdivided.
• This was achieved with a system of sliding and revolving panels. Mrs
Schröder used these panels to open up the space of the second floor to
allow more of an open area , leaving the option still of closing or
separating the rooms when desired.
• When entirely partitioned in, the living level comprises three bedrooms,
bathroom and living room. In-between this and the open state is a wide
variety of possible permutations, each providing its own spatial
experience.

4. central
staircase
system of
sliding and
revolving
panels
separate
toilet and
a
bathroom.
PLAN AND SECTION

5. FACADE
• The facades are a collage of planes and lines whose
components are purposely detached from, and seem to glide
past, one another.
• Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair, each component has its own
form, position and colour.
• Colours were chosen as to strengthen the plasticity of the
facades; surfaces in white and shades of grey, black window
and doorframes, and a number of linear elements in primary
colours.
• There is little distinction between interior and exterior space.
• The rectilinear lines and planes flow from outside to inside, with
the same colour palette and surfaces
• Even the windows are hinged so that they can only open 90
degrees to the wall, preserving strict design standards about
intersecting planes, and further blurring the delineation of
inside and out.

6. Plasticity in
surfaces achieved
by the shades of
white and shades
of grey
collage
of planes
and lines
interior and
exterior
space
merge
The red and blue chair

7. CONSTRUCTION
• Initially, Rietveld wanted to construct the house out
of concrete. It turned out that it would be too
expensive to do that on such a small building.
• The foundations and the balconies were the only
parts of the building that were made out of
concrete.
• The walls were made of brick and plaster. The
window frames and doors were made from wood
as well as the floors, which were supported by
wooden beams. To support the building, steel
girders with wire mesh were used