History of Int.

Architecture & Design in the western world

Name Rudra Vyas Semester III I BID, CEPT University

Name of the Building: The Rietveld Schroder House

Name of the Architect: Gerrit Rietveld
Year of construction: 1924
Materials used: Brick, Concrete, Plaster, Wood, Steel, Wire mesh

Introduction of the building:

The Rietveld Schroder House in Utrecht was built in 1924 by Dutch
architect Gerrit Rietveld for Mrs. Truus Schroder and her three children as per
her requirements, desire and understanding new upcoming styles De Stijl of
modern architecture.

About the building:

This is two story house which looks completely different from its
surrounding. First of all when you get into the house, coming in through the
entrance, there is a small hall which opens up to the central set of stairs.
Divided by the stairs there are six different spaces: a small WC, a generous
kitchen-dining-living area, a servant's bedroom, a small working space, a studio
(meant for Rietveld) and a reading room. The servant's room is hidden at the
back of the house and is only accessible by means of the kitchen-living-dining
areas and the working space. The reading room and studio are easily accessible
through the hall.
The upper level of the Rietveld Schroder House has proven through
analysis to be quite multi-purpose and multi-experiential. The bedroom area
and living/dining area is relatively open and undifferentiated from the exterior
with clear access to the balcony and lots of glazing. The southeast side of the
plan is perhaps the most intriguing: it's quite linear in character due to the roof
which brackets the space quite linearly. The linearity of the southeast side allows
this part of the building to merge seamlessly with the landscape (i.e.
disappearing corner windows). The openness of the southeast and northeast
sections are in clear contrast to the southwest side of plan which is shut off by
opaque walls with only a little patch of glazing that opens the building out to a
single balcony. The privacy of the bathroom is still maintained as the it has been
fixed into the wall. With the closing of the panels on the upper level, we see the
creation of many new spaces. Coming up off of the lower level, a hallway is
created. This hall opens up onto the small toilet, bath, a generously sized
bedroom for the girls, an equally generous boy's bedroom, and the living/dining
area. Truus Schroder's small bedroom is found hidden at the very back displaying
Schroder's need for privacy.
If we talk about circulation, Circulation on the lower level is radial. Coming
up from the entrance of the house, there is the main hall - through this hall there
is access to the reading room, the studio, and the central stairs. Beyond the
stairs, movement becomes circular from the kitchen-dining-living area to the
servant's quarters which open onto the small working space. This working space
further opens onto the studio. Each space on the lower level (with the exception
of the WC) has access to the outdoors. When all of the partitions on the upper
level are opened, the circulation is still quite radial in nature but is circulation
spaces are much wider. Some areas such as the hall disappear and the stairwell
loses some of the shaft-like quality it gains when the partitions are closed. When
all of the partitions on the upper level are closed, the circulation (like the lower
level) is radial except that circulation spaces are now tighter. In addition, spaces
are created such as a small hall and the stairwell being transformed into a shaft-
like structure.
The elevations are perhaps the best display of the visual independence of
the components and of the blurring between the interior and exterior of the
Rietveld-Schroder House. This independence has been highlighted by colour,
placement and separation. Components of the house are visually separated by
colour, specifically: red, blue, yellow, three different shades of grey, black and
white. As these different colours (and hues of these colours) have a
characteristic of optically advancing or receding (i.e. blue recedes and red
advances), it helps the building seem ever-changing. This is especially true in the
different lighting conditions that can occur on site. In addition, the colours help
blur the differences between interior and exterior. A perfect example of this is
on the southwest elevation where lintels of the building are painted black. As
windows during daytime appear black, making the lintels black optically
removes the appearance of the lintels being there. Therefore we have the sense
that the planes of glass meet the balcony and roof without interruption, and
even support it.
Now coming to the structure and construction analysis Rietveld chooses
to use the traditional Dutch brick and wood construction in the Rietveld-
Schroder House for several reasons. For starters, he's well aware of how brick
with plaster overtop works with loads and duress - concrete at the time was a
relatively new material and Rietveld was not particularly experienced with it.
The biggest determining factor, however, was the cost. The cost of making the
entire building out of concrete would have been too expensive to do that small
building. The only parts of the building that had been constructed out of
concrete was the foundation and the horizontal and vertical balcony slabs. As
the concrete balcony couldn't be supported solely by the brick wall, Rietveld
added a horizontal "I" beam under the balcony slap that interlocks with a vertical
stanchion for extra support.
This house is honoured as World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 2
December, 2000.

References:
Video: The house in Neo-Plasticism style: Rietveld Schroder House (UNESCO/NHK)
Books: Decoding homes and houses,
Plans, sections and elevations: Key Buildings of the twentieth century,
The Rietveld Schroder house
NAME OF THE BUILDING: The Rietveld Schroder House
NAME OF THE ARCHITECT: Gerrit Rietveld
YEAR OF COMSTRUCTION
SCALE:
DIRECTION:

Name Rudra Vyas Semester III I BID, CEPT University