Story
The story of Rietveld Schröder House
This small house at the end of an ordinary terrace was a radical break with all the architecture before it. Gerrit Rietveld built it in 1924 for Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children, and she asked for a house designed, preferably, without walls. It is one of the best known examples of De Stijl, and arguably the only true De Stijl building.
Upstairs, officially labelled an attic to satisfy fire regulations, is a large open space; sliding and revolving panels let Mrs Schröder open it up or divide it into three bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room. Notice the facades, a collage of white and grey planes, black frames and lines in primary colours, and the windows hinged to open only 90 degrees to the wall. There was even a garage, though she owned no car.
She lived here until her death in 1985, and it has been a World Heritage Site since 2000.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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