This is Han Schröder, daughter of Truus Schröder. She grew up in the Rietveld Schröder House and later – like her mother – pursued a career as an architect.
“They don't trust a woman to oversee the construction of a project.”
When Schröder was seven years old, she moved with her mother to the Rietveld Schröder House. A night and day difference from their home on Biltstraat.
Her mother consciously lived a frugal life, but Han Schröder charted her own course. At sixteen, she drove a Bugatti through Utrecht without a license.
In 1936, Schröder left for Zurich to study architecture. She rented a room from Florence Maly, a forty-year-old art historian. The two began a relationship.
In 1940, Han earned her degree in architecture.
In 1954, Schröder started her own architectural firm in Amsterdam. She designed a house for her brother in Hattem. Her brother was the director of a construction company.
Some ten years later, she designed a residential complex for retired, single nurses in Austerlitz. As in the world-famous Rietveld Schröder House, the rooms feature movable partition walls.
Schröder quitted working as an architect in 1963 and emigrated to the United States, where her partner Maly is already living. There, she teaches interior design at several universities.
After her death, Schröder left behind a substantial body of work, along with a large volume of correspondence from her mother. This material has been added to the collection of the Centraal Museum.
