Beginning in 1923, Rietveld collaborated with Schröder–Schräder, recently widowed, on the design of a new house. It was to become the most complete expression of de Stijl—the early twentieth–century Dutch art movement—in architecture and design, characterized by primary colors, geometric planar forms, and an unconventional open plan. “After my husband died and I had full custody of the children, I thought a lot about how we should live together,” Schröder–Schräder said years later. “So when Rietveld had made a sketch of the rooms, I asked, ‘Can these walls go too?’ To which he answered, ‘With pleasure, away with those walls!’ . . . and that’s how we ended up with one large space.”
Gallery label from Designing Modern Women 1890–1990, October 5, 2013–October 1, 2014.
