Essay On Shroder House

Submitted By lolwu
Words: 1577
Pages: 7

Ed Wu
Arch 251 History & Theory III
Ayala Levin
November 11, 14
Domesticity from the view of architects

Architects try to design the idea customs home for their clients, and many would wonder what is the meaning of domesticity. In the dictionary it has a meaning of home life, in other word in my definition it is what one would consider home or a place of shelter. This idea is very subjective such that a homeless person would think that the bench in front of the Cooper Union building is home, or a rich man would think that home is a 10, 000 square feet house with a water front view. Even though domesticity has idiosyncratic view, it is the architects’ job to help their client to fulfill their needs with the architects’ pushing it to a meaningful home. This raise the question of what is domesticity in the view of an architect, how it is achieved. To examine the idea with architecture that had been designed in every aspect. Schroder House by Gerrit Thomas Rietveld is chosen to study domesticity because the home is design for one specific family. The essay will begin to analyze the program and the plan of the house with it own specific client with how the architect pushing idea further. Schroder House is located in Utrecht, Netherlands built in 1924. Gerrit Rietveld was commissioned by Mrs. Truss Schorder to build a home for her and her three children after her husband’s death and she wanted to express her vision of how woman should live in a modern and independent way. At the same time Rietveld saw this as an opportunity to use the concepts of De Stijl that is the idea of the abstraction of all forms into orthogonal line and planes and the entire chromatic palette into primary color, white and black.1 Gerrit and Schorder choose a site at the end of Prins Hendriklaan, Utrech, Netherlands. It is located at the end of a heavy block of terraced houses, and on the outskirt of the city looking across open fields and tree. Rietveld has made no effort to make the house fit in with the neighboring buildings. He describes “No one had ever looked at this little lane before this house was built here. There was a dirty crumbling wall with weeds growing in front of it… It was a real piece of no-man’s-land… And we took this plot of ground and made it into a place with a reality of its own. It didn’t matter what it was. So long as something was there.”2 From his words, Rietveld felt that the existing architectures are not significant, and he wanted the house to be original, and also tried response to Schorder’s desire of a modern home. Also, the combination of urban, suburban and rural types at the house offered flexibility and choice of experiences in daily life, and with fixed walls and movable partitions allows the user to make choices according to the various ways of living. 3 The figurative and literal of the house define what Schorder wants of a modern living from the view of Rietveld.
Moreover, Schroder had a very specific order for her program. She needed a home that parents and children would be brought together in an open space, where conversation could be wide-ranging, and where focused activates can also be happening. The house is divided into two different conditions the first floor is small and speared by traditional fixed walls, and the second floor is one large space that can be partitioned by thing sliding panels. The house was a small house with a studio, library, workroom, eat in kitchen on the ground floor.
The second floor is where Rietveld fulfill Schroder’s desire in term of her idea of bringing the family closer together in one single place, and her needs to have her room upstairs because she “absolutely set against living downstairs. I’ve never lived this way, I found the idea very restricting.”4 The plan on the right is label to be 7 girls’ room, 8 Bathroom, 9 Schroder’s room, 10 boy’s room, 11 Stair landing, 12. Living/dinning area. Her room is located in the corner of the upper floor with no fixed wall,