Truus Schröder-Schräder

Truus Schröder-Schräder (1889–1985) was a Dutch socialite and trained pharmacist who was closely involved with avant-garde artists and architects of the De Stijl movement. Together with Gerrit Rietveld, she built a house for herself and her three children – the Rietveld Schröder House – which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Initially credited as a joint designer, this was often forgotten later once Rietveld became a well-known architect. Immediately following their collaboration on the house, she went on to work with Rietveld on multiple other architectural projects as well.

Biography Truus Schräder was born in Deventer, in the eastern part of the Netherlands, in 1889. Her father owned a textile factory, and her mother died when Truus was four. Her father remarried two years later, and the young girl did not get along with her stepmother. Truus was sent to a convent boarding school in Amersfoort. After that, she trained as a pharmacist. In 1911, she married Frits Schröder, a lawyer who was eleven years her senior but from a similar prosperous Catholic background.

Rietveld Schröder House

In 1923, while Truus was in her mid 30s, she became a widow and was left to raise her children on her own. She decided she wanted to move out of the house in Biltstraat, where she had lived with her husband. Truus was later intimately involved in the restoration of the Rietveld Schröder House, for which she chose architect Bertus Mulder, who had worked with Rietveld. She had clear ideas on what should be done with her house, which she loved and described with the phrase, "the luxury of frugality".

Other works

Schröder-Schräder collaborated with Gerrit Rietveld on the following projects:

Rietveld-Schroder House (1924) Glass Radio Cabinet (1925) Hanging Glass Cabinet (1926) Project for Standardized Housing and the interiors for the Birza House (1927) Van Urk House and the Desk (1930–31) Houses on Erasmuslaan (1934) Vreeburg Cinema and Movable Summer Houses (1936) Ekano interiors in Haarlem (1938)