Han Schröder

Johanna Erna Else Schröder (16 July 1918 – 20 March 1992) was a Dutch architect and educator. After becoming one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, she opened her own architecture and interior design firm in Amsterdam. In the 1963, she immigrated to the United States where she went on to teach interior design at Adelphi University, Parsons School of Design, New York Institute of Technology and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Early life and education

Schröder lived in the Schröder House in Utrecht, the Netherlands, together with her mother, Truus Schröder-Schräder, who was also an interior decorator. The house with moving partitions was designed in 1924 by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld who became a friend of Schröder's and an important influence on her future works. In a personal interview with the International Archive of Women in Architecture, Schröder described the moving partitions are meant to be "the medium for dynamic flexibility", as a house is not supposed to be "a series of cubicles."

While a teenager, she worked on furniture design with both Rietveld and with Gerard van de Groenekan. In 1936, she attended the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, graduating as an architect in 1940. Key designs included the Gaastra House in Zeist, a centre for rejected children in Ellecom, an auditorium for the Social Work Academy, and Kessler House, a recreation building for employees working in the steel industry. After her retirement, Schröder moved back to the Netherlands.

Schröder died in March 1992 at the Boerhaave Clinic in Amsterdam.