The Rietveld Schröder House was built in Utrecht in 1924 through the collaboration of Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder. Schröder moved in with her three children in January 1925. Its horizontal and vertical planes, accented with primary colors, made a radical proposition for a family home and brought the house international recognition within the De Stijl movement.
The upper floor contains its most telling invention. Sliding partitions allow the main living space to remain open during the day and divide into private bedrooms at night. This flexibility gives the occupants an active role in arranging the house. A room is defined by use and time as much as by a permanent set of walls.
Rietveld and Schröder also established an architectural practice in the ground-floor office. The house was both a place to live and a working demonstration of their shared ideas. Its projecting planes and color accents are therefore closely connected with an experiment in everyday life: a compact domestic setting organized around light, movement and changing needs.
Rietveld Zig-zag chair
